Scholarship brings maternal care to Colorado's rural areas
Rural communities nationwide lack access to medical care, and the problem begins at birth. A federal grant has allowed the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus to bring much-needed health care to areas that need it most.
Colorado has some of the country's leading hospitals, but there are 13 counties that don't have a hospital at all. Rural hospitals have struggled to keep maternity care services available due to cost.
As a result, many hospitals over the last several years have closed their maternity units.
Denise Smith, a certified midwife and assistant professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, says it's time to rethink how maternal care is structured.
"Women who give birth in rural areas do have more complications of birth, and we're seeing that there really is an urban-rural disparity in outcomes," said Smith. "The intent is to grow the midwifery workforce to serve populations that are currently underserved by maternity care providers."
A new scholarship will fund tuition, fees and living expenses for up to 14 nurses to complete a midwifery graduate program over the next four years. Nurses must commit to working in a rural area after graduation.
Scholarship applicant, Raquel Rhea, is a traveling nurse working in Eureka, California. The closest trauma center to her rural hospital is six hours away.
"Moms still have to come two or three hours to our hospital. So a lot of the time, they don't have prenatal care. They haven't seen the doctor in years," said Rhea. "They just know that they're about to have a baby and they just come in."
She says many of these women have health complications.
Rhea, who grew up in Oklahoma, says the call to rural care is personal. Her family doctor took care of the entire community and played critical roles in their lives. She's trying to make a similar impact with this scholarship.
"This scholarship will allow us to not only have clinicals like in Aurora at Children's Hospital Colorado but also in the rural areas. The University of Colorado is taking amazing strides to make sure that as future midwives, we're as prepared as possible to work in a rural area," said Rhea. "I'm hoping that that gap is bridged even more so that these women get the care that they need," said Rhea.
The total cost of the graduate program is about $60,000 alone. She says this scholarship is life-changing for nurses and eventually the rural communities they'll go on to serve.