A Provider's View:
Jude Strelitz-Block interviews Laura Evans in Austin, Texas March 8, 2020.
Nurse Laura Evans, Director of Labor & Delivery, St. David's South Austin Medical Center, explains how transportation poses a barrier to healthcare access in Austin, Texas. |
An Austinite's View:
DID YOU KNOW?
Apparently, strollers are not allowed on Cap Metro buses. A current Change.org petition is seeking to change this: "Austin! Allow strollers on the bus! In Austin, babies in strollers are not allowed to ride the bus. Even when buses are almost empty and there is plenty of space on board, Moms, Dads, and other carers traveling with infants are required to take their baby out of the stroller and fold it up before boarding the bus. Moreover, there is nowhere inside the bus to stow your folded stroller; drivers are ordering Mamas to hoist buggies on the bike rack in the front of the bus! This policy makes it almost impossible to board a Capital Metro bus with a young baby: public transport should be accessible to everyone!" |
According to Evans, lack of access to transportation leads to delays in care. The lack of transportation creates additional care access challenges for carless residents seeking care, especially when they are required to visit multiple locations due to their inadequate health insurance or dependence on low-cost community care clinics.
Transportation is a really a big factor in accessibility to care. We see patients who have irregular care where they're should've followed up, you know, every two weeks. But they only followed up every month. Taking the bus to the clinic is very difficult - almost unreasonable. And so they did not get the amount of care that would be recommended for them. I think transportation becomes one of the hardest parts of access to care because there's not a lot of solutions in the community. For pregnant people with kids especially for car seats, you know, people without money. That's, that's one of the hardest things to figure out for them.
The delay [for pregnant people] would be maybe that they wouldn't do a full workup on your pregnancy [at the hospital]. They would just send you home and then you'd have to come back to a clinic. Clinics are crowded, they're hard to get to. All of the sub specialists are not always available. So sometimes you'd have to wait to see a sub specialist if you had any kind of risk factors or problems.
Evans also described the same transportation problem that women face when seeking post-natal care after their babies are born.
Also [transportation is a problem] for pediatric care for their babies afterwards. We see some of the same barriers which are transportation barriers for newborns. Getting them to the pediatrician on time to see if they're growing and eating and all of those things that could be a barrier. Especially if mom doesn't have anyone to help her get her newborn, you know, it's hard to get out. You have a new baby and maybe recovering from like a Csection or something. And so if you don't have anyone to drive you, that's very difficult thing to get on the bus.
Let's take action: Austin Connects is here to help!