Canadians sent to U.S. for neonatal care
LISA PRIEST

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

July 24, 2007 at 1:53 AM EDT

Women with high-risk pregnancies in three provinces have been sent at taxpayers' expense to give birth in the United States, where fragile infants spend weeks to months in hospital neonatal intensive-care units.

Expectant mothers from British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario have been sent to four U.S. states, a development some attribute to an increase in the number of premature births, a nursing shortage and a stretched health-care system.

This year, 26 mothers from B.C. have been sent to three hospitals in Washington State; nine patients remain there

today, according to Sarah Plank, spokeswoman for the B.C. Health Ministry.


Enlarge Image
Michelle James spends $800 (U.S.) a month for an apartment to keep herself and her son, Joshua, near the Spokane, Wash., hospital where Kelsey was born May 17. (Jeff T. Green/For The GLobe and Mail)

In Ontario, 10 women with high-risk pregnancies were transferred to U.S. hospitals from April to the end of June, according to Kris Bailey, executive director of CritiCall, an emergency-referral service for physicians in that province. That is one patient more than the entire number Ontario transferred to the United States in fiscal 2006-07. In Alberta, four pregnant women were transferred to Montana this year.

Mothers sent across the border are typically those who have gone into labour before 32 weeks gestation, at which point the premature babies require the highest level of neonatal intensive care. With no beds available in their home province or nearby, expectant mothers are often sent by air ambulance to hospitals in Washington, Montana, Michigan and New York.

One mother, Michelle James of Port Coquitlam, B.C., had the nightmare experience of going into labour in late April four months early – 24 weeks into her pregnancy. With no neonatal intensive-care unit beds available in B.C. or Seattle, she was sent to Spokane, Wash.

“We couldn't stop my labour, and they needed to send me here because they had no beds available,â€