title: Prenatal care. Appointment study: a survey by the Infant Mortality Work Group of the Mayor's Advisory Council on Child Health.
abstract: This biopsy of the prenatal care system provides plain evidence of weaknesses within the infrastructure and details the inconveniences New York City women who rely on public services must face. The unwillingness of some of the municipal clinics to accept pregnancy test results from their sister hospitals or the Department of Health's free-pregnancy testing program exemplifies one of the bureaucratic barriers in the system, and one which could be rectified easily given sufficient determination. Other bureaucratic barriers, such as the inability to schedule an appointment unless a woman is registered at the clinic, suggest the need for a media campaign urging women of reproductive age to register with a health care provider before becoming pregnant. The solution to the language barrier confronted by Spanish women requires a commitment to hiring bilingual clerical staff. Lastly, the problems of being placed "on-hold" or frequent busy signals and the high number of clinic visits made before seeing a physician can only be ameliorated by an increase in funding for prenatal care clinic staffing, for support staff and professionals alike. The survey, conducted over the course of 2 weeks with available city staff and equipment, is a relatively inexpensive and effective method for evaluating the prenatal care system and should be repeated in order to document systematically the anecdotal reports shared by clinic administration and clinic patients alike.
mesh_terms: D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D005260:Female; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000639:trends; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D007226:Infant Mortality / Q000639:trends*; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008489:Medical Indigency / Q000639:trends; D009519:New York City; D011247:Pregnancy; D011295:Prenatal Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D014504:Urban Health / Q000639:trends*; D044465:White People