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For Immediate Release
April, 05 2019, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Lucia Hwang, (510) 872-8338
Nurses Volunteering Medical Services See Sharp Increase in Numbers of Migrants Recently Released from Federal Detention
Nurse volunteers with the Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN) -- a disaster-relief project of the California Nurses Foundation (CNF) and National Nurses United (NNU) -- who are providing medical care in Tucson for migrants just released from federal detention say that they are noticing a sharp increase in recent weeks in the number of families they are treating.
In February, when RNRN first started sending teams of volunteer nurses to the area each weekend, nurses were assessing about 40 to 60 patients each day. Now, nurses are seeing upwards of 100 people each day.
WASHINGTON
Nurse volunteers with the Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN) -- a disaster-relief project of the California Nurses Foundation (CNF) and National Nurses United (NNU) -- who are providing medical care in Tucson for migrants just released from federal detention say that they are noticing a sharp increase in recent weeks in the number of families they are treating.
In February, when RNRN first started sending teams of volunteer nurses to the area each weekend, nurses were assessing about 40 to 60 patients each day. Now, nurses are seeing upwards of 100 people each day.
"We've all seen the news reports of overcrowding and migrant families being held behind fences under freeway overpasses," said Cathy Kennedy, a Sacramento RN and NNU vice president who has traveled on RNRN deployments to the border before and will be in Tucson this weekend. "I want to go and see the situation for myself. We need to make sure that we provide any type of medical and mental care and support that we can. We need to listen to their stories and provide some gentleness and kindness. It's just the right thing to do." Kennedy noted that the vast majority of migrant families are fleeing extreme poverty, widespread violence, and political repression, conditions that were brought on in part because of U.S. policies.
Nurses will be available for interview in Tucson from April 5 through April 7. They are providing the medical aid at the Casa Alitas shelter operated by Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona, which has provided assistance to more than 2,000 migrant families since October 2018.
Nurses returning from past deployments have expressed great concern about the harsh and unhealthy conditions children and their parents are facing in federal detention, conditions that have led to the deteriorated medical states of some migrants.
Migrants and asylum seekers have shared with nurses on deployment in Tucson, that they are often housed in fenced cages with concrete floors, in very cold temperatures without adequate bedding or clothing for warmth. Nurses from previous RNRN deployments said that they have heard repeated stories of medications being confiscated or denied to those in custody, including medications for children with serious conditions, such as asthma inhalers and anti-seizure medications.
In addition, the nurses are distressed by migrants' reports that they are being held for days without access to adequate food, clean water, or opportunity to bathe. They note that migrants nearly always arrive at the shelter very hungry, and suffering from dehydration.
"It's unimaginable to conceive what kind of situations these families are escaping if they feel risking their lives and their children in such a torturous journey is a better option or solution," said Jessica Rose, a local Arizona RN who is returning to volunteer at the shelter and identifies with the migrants, being the child of immigrant parents. "The families we were able to help through the RNRN deployment come not only with stories of extreme poverty and fear, but stories filled with dreams and motivation drawn from hope and an opportunity to survive and thrive. As a nurse, I have a sense of responsibility for everyone when I see with my own eyes the needs of the people migrating."
National Nurses United, with close to 185,000 members in every state, is the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in US history.
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"The only reason she is not with us is because of Donald Trump, Greg Abbott, and every single Republican politician who helped put Texas' abortion ban in place," said one advocacy group.
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Friends and family of Porsha Ngumezi, a 35-year-old mother of two in Houston, were stunned last year to learn that she had died in a hospital after suffering a miscarriage when she was 11 weeks pregnant—and medical experts who spoke to the investigative outlet ProPublicaon Monday had the same reaction.
"All she needed was a [dilation and curettage]," one friend told Ngumezi's grieving husband, Hope Ngumezi, referring to a standard procedure which is often given to pregnant patients who have first-trimester miscarriages. Commonly called a D&C, it is also diagnose or treat other health conditions and provide abortion care.
Dr. Daniel Grossman, an obstetrics and gynecology professor at University of California, San Francisco, toldProPublica that "at every point" of Ngumezi's visit to Houston Methodist Sugar Land, a hospital outside Houston, medical providers' response to her case was "kind of shocking."
"She is having significant blood loss and the physician didn't move toward aspiration," Grossman told ProPublica.
Like at least two other Texas women—Nevaeh Crain and Josseli Barnica—Ngumezi's death in June 2023 was the result of the abortion ban that went into effect in Texas in 2022, according to medical experts who reviewed her case.
Ngumezi arrived at the hospital on June 11, 2023 after experiencing heavy bleeding 11 weeks into her pregnancy with her third child. Doctors noted that Ngumezi had a blood-clotting disorder and that she was experiencing "significant bleeding" with large clots.
"Doctors assume that a D&C is not standard in Texas anymore, even in cases where it should be recommended. People are afraid: They see D&C as abortion and abortion as illegal."
An ultrasound showed a "sac-like structure," but no fetus or cardiac activity were detected, indicating that she was having a miscarriage.
But instead of providing a D&C, in which a small tube is inserted into the uterus to gently remove any remaining fetal tissue, doctors took a "wait-and-see approach [that] has become more common under abortion bans," according to the medical experts who spoke to ProPublica.
Dr. Gabrielle Taper, who has worked as an OB-GYN in Austin, told ProPublica that since Texas' abortion ban went into effect in 2022—two months after the right-wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—there has been "much more hesitation [among doctors] about: When can we intervene, do we have enough evidence to say this is a miscarriage, how long are we going to wait, what will we use to feel definitive?"
For Ngumezi, that hesitation meant that Dr. Andrew Ryan Davis, the obstetrician on duty, prescribed misoprostol to help Ngumezi pass the fetal tissue without a D&C.
Dr. Alison Goulding, another OB-GYN in Houston, told ProPublica that because misoprostol can also be used for women in labor or to treat postpartum bleeding, under Texas' abortion ban, "stigma and fear are there for D&Cs in a way that they are not for misoprostol."
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But more than a dozen doctors told ProPublica that considering Ngumezi's blood-clotting disorder, doctors should have provided a D&C.
"Misoprostol," reported ProPublica, "is an effective method to complete low-risk miscarriages but is not recommended when a patient is unstable."
Some critics who support abortion bans have dismissed Ngumezi's case—and that of other women who have died because of the laws—as the result of medical malpractice that had nothing to do with recently passed state laws. They claim Texas' law protects women who have miscarriages.
But ProPublica noted that Ngumezi had a similar case to one described on social media by podcast host Ryan Hamilton earlier this year. Hamilton's wife experienced bleeding while miscarrying at 13 weeks, and was prescribed misoprostol and sent home after an ultrasound at Surepoint Emergency Center Stephenville showed no fetal cardiac activity. The bleeding got worse, but an emergency doctor told the couple they couldn't provide a D&C because of "the current stance" in Texas.
Greer Donley, a law professor at University of Pittsburgh, said that "the antiabortion movement wants us to blame the doctors and sometimes that is warranted. But abortion bans are the ultimate cause of this harm."
"When life in prison is the penalty for violating a ban, doctors will understandably be risk averse. And that chill in care will cause death," said Donley.
ProPublica reported that "performing a D&C attracts more attention from colleagues, creating a higher barrier in a state where abortion is illegal."
Doctors, added Goulding, "have to convince everyone that it is legal and won't put them at risk [of prosecution]."
In Ngumezi's case, the bleeding continued after she took misoprostol, and her heart stopped three hours later—a "preventable" death, according to the experts.
"The only reason" Ngumezi died, said Reproductive Justice for All, is that Republican politicians including President-elect Donald Trump helped put Texas' abortion ban in place.
"We are heartbroken and enraged by the tragic, preventable death of Porsha Ngumezi," said Planned Parenthood Texas Votes. "This nightmare reality, where political agendas outweigh patients' lives, has left another family shattered."
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Multiple media reports detail that the latest Israeli barrage in Lebanon included strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold. Reuters and The Times of Israel report that the Israeli military said one round of strikes hit 20 targets in the densely populated city within two minutes.
Israel issued multiple evacuation orders for different parts of Lebanon Tuesday, perThe New York Times' live updates.
"Residents of Lebanon, in the coming hours, we will inform the residents of buildings used by Hezbollah of the need to evacuate them for your safety according to the maps that will be published," Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on X roughly an hour ago, according to Al Jazeera.
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Israel's large-scale bombardment of Lebanon—which began some two months ago and was soon followed by a ground invasion—has killed more than 3,000 people. Hezbollah rocket fire has killed more than 40 civilians in Israel, according toThe Associated Press yesterday, and dozens of Israeli soldiers have been killed on the ground in Lebanon.
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"These appointments clearly show the incoming administration will be run by and for the ultra-wealthy," said David Kass, ATF's executive director. "They've already announced plans to spend trillions of dollars to renew the Trump tax bill, to further enrich large corporations and wealthy elites like themselves while advocating for cuts to vital programs that working and middle-class Americans depend on."
ATF's analysis, released Monday, shows that the combined wealth of Trump's richest nominees and transition team members—including the president-elect and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), the vice president-elect—is over $313 billion. By comparison, the combined net worth of President Joe Biden's Cabinet is an estimated $118 million.
"Even excluding Elon Musk—the world's richest man and Trump's co-director of the Department of Government Efficiency—the average net worth of Trump, his vice president, and top appointees is $616 million," ATF observed. "This figure is over 616 times higher than the mean average wealth of the typical American household, which is a little more than $1 million."
ATF and Accountable.US also highlighted other ultra-rich individuals nominated for key roles in the incoming administration, including drilling enthusiast Doug Burgum, worth an estimated $100 million; Mehmet Oz, worth up to $315 million; and Chris Wright, who as of earlier this month held nearly $47 million worth of stock in his fracking company, Liberty Energy.
Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US, said in a statement Tuesday that "Donald Trump paid plenty of lip service to working-class Americans" during the 2024 campaign, "but as president-elect, he's moved quickly to stack his administration with billionaires that share his vision of a rigged economy that only works for people like them."
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