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U.S. Senator Tina Smith gets help from Zora Radosevich, MDH Office of Rural Health and Primary Care Director, staffer Orion DiFranco and nurse/trainer Alanna Groth in a simulated birth delivery at Community Memorial Hospital on April 13. Smith has been working to secure more funding for rural obstetrics practices and training so women don't have to travel to bigger hospitals – sometimes hours away – to give birth.
Unique unit highlighted at hospital
U.S. Senator Tina Smith visited Community Memorial Hospital earlier this month and delivered a baby.
Neither the mother nor the baby were real - both are part of the hospital's birth simulation training program, a high-tech lifelike experience that allows doctors, nurses, students and even senators to practice a wide range of live birth scenarios, from a cesarean section to breech birth to postpartum hemorrhaging.
"At 3 a.m. it's them and the nurses," explained CMH CEO Rick Breuer. "That's why this training is so important: you can practice the routine and the black swan events - the things you hope you never see but you need to be ready for."
While the Democrat Smith is not making a career switch, she is passionate about making sure that rural women can get the care they need from well-trained providers without having to travel long distances.
Talking to hospitals like CMH helped the junior senator understand the issues, and ultimately led to her securing $520,000 in federal funding for expanding rural obstetric simulation training options statewide. Smith also co-authored a bill to modernize rural maternal and obstetric services, in an attempt to reverse the trend of rural hospitals closing their birthing facilities and sending patients to larger hospitals, sometimes hours away.
"Studies have shown the farther a mom has to travel to deliver a baby, the worse outcomes are," Breuer said. "So unless we want a dozen hospitals to deliver every baby in Minnesota, we need programs like this to help the low volume hospitals keep up their skills."
