Japan: No progress in emergency pregnancy care

Via AP/Daily Yomiuri Online:

Wednesday's case of a pregnant woman suffering a miscarriage inside an ambulance after being turned away by nine hospitals in Nara and Osaka prefectures is an indication of the slow progress in efforts to improve the nation's emergency ambulance system.

The incident follows the death last year of a pregnant woman in Nara Prefecture who had fallen into a coma during delivery at a public hospital, having been turned away by 19 hospitals in Osaka and nearby prefectures before arriving there. The woman died eight days later at the hospital that finally accepted her.

Based on the lessons from last year's case, the Nara prefectural government and other administrative authorities made urgent improvements to their systems for transporting pregnant women by ambulance.

But a shortage of obstetricians has resulted in an increasingly serious trend of hospitals across the nation closing their obstetrics departments.