Rural health care has seen both triumphs and challenges, and legislators like US Senator Tina Smith are working to expand access to it. During a roundtable at Sanford Health in Bemidji on Thursday, Sen. Smith met with rural health care and Indigenous leaders to discuss improving maternal care.

Sen. Smith learned about the Families First: Rural Maternal Health Collaborative. This partnership between different health service providers from the area is what Smith called a “role model” for what can be done to expand access to rural maternity care. The talk also covered how this collaboration can also solve challenges patients may face.

“And what we can do to start to address the deep disparities that women living in rural communities face when it comes to maternal mortality, and that’s particularly acute for Native women,” said Smith. “So I’m really impressed by the work that this collaborative is doing to go at the root causes of what hampers women’s capacity to get access to care.”

“We have a very diverse population with many challenges, and if we really want to reduce the disparate outcomes that exist, we need the resources to do so,” said Sanford Health OB-GYN Dr. Johnna Nynas. “We have to keep these women safe, and part of that is making sure that we have the resources that we need, the equipment that we need, in order to provide them care.”

Smith is currently on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pension. She has worked to improve funding and maternal health innovation through the Rural Maternal and Obstetric Modernization of Services Act.

By — Lakeland News