Iran’s Nurses Are Martyrs to Trump’s Maximum Pressure
Narjes Khanalizadeh was a 25-year-old nurse in Gilan, a province along the Caspian Sea in northern Iran.
Experts Apply Lessons From Ebola to Ensure Girls Return to School Post-Pandemic
In April of 2015, after Ebola ravaged Sierra Leone and paralyzed West Africa, schools finally began reopening. Thousands of children eagerly returned to school after nine months stuck at home, but 13-year-old Isatu and her…
‘The Reality Is, It’s Incredibly Hard’
Shelly Hughes’s typical day starts at 9 p.m. She’s used to not wanting to get out of bed and go to work, but now the feeling is much stronger. Her son, home from college because…
‘There’s No Backup’: Single Moms on Quarantining with Kids
I started taking the pandemic seriously when schools closed. I’ve never seen day-to-day life change so drastically for so many Americans. Friends began posting pictures with their kids online, with #homeschooling. I couldn’t help but…
Kenya’s Labor Market Wasn’t Made for a Pandemic
NAIROBI—For the past week, every morning, Akonya Shimeseru wakes up in her single-room home that she shares with her two children in Ongata Rongai, a town on the outskirts of Nairobi.
“I Didn’t Feel Like It Was Unfair of the Hospital. I Thought It Was Unfair of the Universe.”
On Wednesday, March 18, 28-year-old Latoyha Young and her mother, Thomasina Hayten, rushed to Sutter Health Hospital in Sacramento, believing that Young was in labor. Hospital staff sent her home — she wasn’t far enough…
For Abused Women, a Pandemic Lockdown Holds Dangers of Its Own
Early last week, as the novel coronavirus exploded from state to state, a woman called the National Domestic Violence Hotline in a crisis: Her partner had tried to strangle her and she needed medical help,…
When You’re Pregnant During a Pandemic
On February 27, I summited Mount Kilimanjaro and immediately had a desperate urge to pee. I should have known then, squatting in the snow next to the sign marking the summit, that I was pregnant.…
“I’m Homeless—How Can I Self-Quarantine?”
Across from two of the tall, unnervingly skinny palm trees Los Angeles is known for, there is a light blue bungalow in a row of neat, single-story structures. After a historically dry winter, the city…
‘You Are Beautiful’: the Kenyan Beauty Parlour Serving Female Heroin Users
Naima Said stands back and studies her handiwork. “Not quite,” the self-taught beauty therapist mumbles, her forehead furrowed in frustration. Then she delicately dabs her client’s eyelid with a squishy makeup sponge. She’s not finished…
Why the Coronavirus Outbreak Could Hit Women Hardest
At 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, I got a text message saying my children’s school in D.C. would close the next day for a deep cleaning. I’m a single mom and am lucky to have caregiving…
Meet Beauty Therapist Saving Female Heroin Addicts
Housed in the Reachout Centre Trust, which helps Mombasa residents fight drug addiction, it opened last year with a view to attracting more female users to its services that include HIV testing, counselling, methadone treatment…
My Cousin’s Experience with Childhood Trauma
Trauma is not only created by singular incidents. It can also be born out of a person’s repeated or continuous exposure to stress. A child in poverty faces a higher likelihood of developing this kind…
The World’s Mothers Are Watching Ever More Babies Die of Starvation
When 14-year-old Wounaba first found out that she was pregnant, she was excited—until the fear kicked in.
Worried About Abortion Laws? Catholic Hospital Mergers Also Seen as Threat to Women’s Health Care
In 1995, Lois Uttley was working as a reproductive rights advocate in New York when the merger of two hospitals in Troy, a city near Albany, caught her off-guard. One was secular, the other, Catholic.…
Wisconsin’s Catholic Hospitals Limit Reproductive Procedures
MILWAUKEE — When Ascension’s St. Joseph Hospital in Milwaukee announced it would cut back services in 2018, residents of the surrounding Sherman Park area protested. The predominantly black, low-income neighborhood already faced its share of…
When Catholic Hospitals Merge, Reproductive Services Can Change
The shift toward managed care in the mid-to-late 1990s and passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 pressured health systems to contain costs, fueling mergers between Catholic and non-Catholic hospitals. In some cases, changes…
Catholic Hospitals Often Only Choice For Women of Color in Milwaukee
Expectant mothers in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, have a wealth of hospitals to choose from, unlike some of their counterparts in rural areas. For the county’s black and Hispanic women, however, the choice is often a…