The world says that "American lies" have been exposed! The United Nations report condemns the "abuse" of African American female mortality rates in the US healthcare system | Women | United Nations
On July 18th, China Daily reported that according to a survey report by the United Nations Population Fund on nine countries in the Americas, the maternal mortality rate of African American women is "astonishingly high" both in absolute terms and compared to non black and non indigenous women in the region. The United Nations warned on the 12th that African American women in the United States face healthcare abuse due to "systemic racism," resulting in high rates of mortality during childbirth.
Dr. Natalia Carnem, Executive Director of the Population Fund, said, "African American women are still suffering from the persecution of racism, many of whom are descendants of victims of slavery."
The report by the United Nations Population Fund exposed some common American lies that African American women suffer more severe maternal health outcomes due to failure to seek treatment in a timely manner, poor lifestyle choices, and genetic predispositions, according to the report.
According to the United Nations, disproportionate abuse stems from unscientific, slavery era beliefs that still exist in the healthcare system.
The report emphasizes that there is still a profound connection between the field of gynecology and racism in the United States, including surgical techniques such as cesarean section created through experiments on enslaved African American women, due to the lie that "African American women experience pain in a different way than white women.".
The report states that to this day, the belief that African American women do not experience pain in the same way is still prevalent in medical education in the United States. However, American medical students and doctors report insincerely arguing that "African American nerve endings are not as sensitive as white people's nerve endings."
Meanwhile, the report adds that these biases appear in different ways in American medical textbooks. For example, childbirth is modeled after the more common pelvic morphology among white women. Different pelvic manifestations are considered abnormal or high-risk. Therefore, when African American childbirth patients express pain, the pain is often minimized or directly ignored. Not only that, the report also points out that during childbirth, African American women are often forcibly "not anesthetized" because they are "insensitive to pain" or denied access to painkillers because they are considered "more addicted" than white women.
The report emphasizes that African American women in the region are at a disadvantage before, during, and after pregnancy, and even face verbal and physical abuse from healthcare workers. The report states that African American women face more complications and "delays" in medical interventions during pregnancy, "which often lead to death."
The report states that African American women are three times more likely to die during or within six weeks after childbirth than white women. Even African American women with higher income or education levels face higher mortality rates, with even African American women with a college degree having a pregnancy mortality rate 1.6 times higher than white women with a high school diploma or lower.
Kanem stated that African American women are often subjected to abuse, their needs are not taken seriously, and their families are shattered due to avoidable deaths during childbirth. Justice and equality can only be achieved when the US healthcare system sees these women and provides them with respectful and compassionate care.
