Dozens of protesters rallied Thursday outside Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to demand that the health system acknowledge “systemic failures” in its maternal care and set up a board to investigate racial disparities, saying that a federal agreement with Cedars-Sinai doesn’t go far enough to protect patients.
“To those inside this building with the power to change this system: We expect you to do better,” said Gabrielle Brown, who coordinates the maternal and infant health program at Black Women for Wellness, an education and advocacy group.
The protests were led by 4Kira4Moms, a group founded by Charles Johnson, whose wife Kira Dixon Johnson died of hemorrhaging at Cedars-Sinai after a cesarean section nearly nine years ago. The widower sued Cedars-Sinai and doctors involved in her care, eventually reaching settlements in those lawsuits.
Cedars-Sinai said in a statement that it shares “a common goal of ensuring that all birthing patients receive high-quality, safe and equitable care” with 4Kira4Moms and has offered to meet with the group.
The health system also said it “has led substantial efforts over the last decade to understand and address the effects of bias in healthcare and promote equitable outcomes for our birthing patients,” including introducing an online tool to anonymously report suspected bias in labor and delivery settings.
After the death of Kira Johnson, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights launched an investigation into how pregnant patients of color were being treated at Cedars-Sinai.
The agency told the health system in a November letter that its review had “uncovered evidence that Cedars-Sinai may have engaged in a pattern of inaction and/or neglect concerning the health risks associated with Black maternity patients.” The Office for Civil Rights then reached a voluntary agreement with Cedars-Sinai last month to resolve the allegations facing the health system.
The agreement, which is supposed to be monitored by federal officials for three years, includes steps meant to improve outcomes for pregnant patients of color, including facilitating access to doulas during labor and sharing findings about incidents of suspected bias reported to Cedars-Sinai.
Johnson and other advocates say the federal agreement falls short of what is needed. 4Kira4Moms has called for Cedars-Sinai to suspend any clinicians implicated in discrimination or negligence and urged it to form an independent oversight board to investigate racial disparities in care, among other steps.
Gabby Albert, executive director of 4Kira4Moms, said what is missing from the agreement is community oversight and “accountability — admitting that they have a problem.”
The federal agreement with Cedars-Sinai was announced Jan. 16, four days before the inauguration of President Trump, whose administration has taken aim at programs focused on “diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.” At the protest, Johnson urged the Trump administration to fund the HHS Office for Civil Rights.
“If you want to ensure that America is great, you cannot do that without ensuring that every single mother in this country has a safe, dignified birthing experience,” he said to cheers.
In California, Black women have suffered a maternal mortality rate more than three times that of white women, state data have shown. Nationally, a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found maternal mortality rates failed to improve for Black women as they decreased for other groups.
Before Trump took office, a CDC website listed structural racism and implicit bias among the many factors to blame for such disparities, echoing findings long cited by health researchers and advocates. As of early February, the CDC website had been changed to eliminate references to those factors, mentioning only differences in healthcare and underlying chronic conditions.
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