小威廉姆斯死里逃生，凸显美国医疗系统种族歧视

网坛传奇塞雷娜·威廉姆斯是公认的全球最伟大运动员之一，甚至可能是有史以来。她最近又实现了另一项惊人的里程碑——《Vogue》在一篇生动的人物专访中提到，她在分娩后挽救了自己的生命。威廉姆斯的可怕经历备受瞩目，它是种族不平等现象的一个缩影，而这种现象仍在美国的医疗系统中挥之不去。

《Vogue》概述了威廉姆斯产生血栓，必须接受抗凝血治疗，并因此在分娩后一天发现事态糟糕的经过：

次日，塞雷娜在医院康复时，忽然感觉喘不过气来。由于她有血栓的病史，又因为最近的手术而停用了常规抗凝药物，她立刻猜测自己又一次肺栓塞了。（塞雷娜生活在对血栓的恐惧之中。）她走出了病房以免母亲担心，并喘息着告诉最近的护士自己立刻需要CT增强扫描以及IV肝素（一种血液稀释剂）。护士觉得止痛药可能把她搞糊涂了，但是塞雷娜坚持要做，很快，医生就对她的腿部进行了超声检查。她还记得自己对医疗团队说：“这是多普勒检查？我跟你说了我要CT扫描和肝素点滴。”超声什么都没有检查出来，所以他们把她送去了CT室，果然，她的肺里已经有了一些小血栓。几分钟后，她挂上了点滴。“感觉就像是听威廉姆斯医生的一样！”

一个名人这样与死神擦肩而过，就会成为轰动性的故事。但在探索社会经济学对美国母亲产生了何种影响的一系列严格调查中，ProPublica发现，美国数百万有色人种的女性也在经历这类故事。

其中一份调查以“医院如何疏忽对待黑人母亲”为题，对威廉姆斯遭遇的痛苦经历进行了尖锐的分析。安妮·瓦尔德曼写道：“一直以来，黑人女性……在怀孕和分娩上遭受了更差的待遇，她们在此期间的死亡率是白人母亲的三倍以上。尽管部分差异可以用贫穷和就医困难来解释，但越来越多的证据表明，黑人女性数量很多的医院提供的护理质量存在问题。这些医院往往位于种族隔离导致的弱势社区。”

确实，公开数据明确显示，在死亡率和患病率方面，从癌症到血液病到产后并发症，美国医疗系统存在的种族差异性难以改变且由来已久。（财富中文网）

译者：严匡正

Tennis legend Serena Williams is widely regarded as one of the greatest athletes on the planet, and perhaps ever. She recently achieved another stunning milestone—saving her own life after giving birth, according to a fascinating profile in Vogue. And Williams’ harrowing experience serves as a high-profile microcosm of the racial inequities which still haunt the American medical system.

Vogue outlines how Williams, who suffers from blood clots and must take anti-clotting medication because of it, knew that something had gone terribly wrong just a day after giving birth to her child:

The next day, while recovering in the hospital, Serena suddenly felt short of breath. Because of her history of blood clots, and because she was off her daily anticoagulant regimen due to the recent surgery, she immediately assumed she was having another pulmonary embolism. (Serena lives in fear of blood clots.) She walked out of the hospital room so her mother wouldn’t worry and told the nearest nurse, between gasps, that she needed a CT scan with contrast and IV heparin (a blood thinner) right away. The nurse thought her pain medicine might be making her confused. But Serena insisted, and soon enough a doctor was performing an ultrasound of her legs. “I was like, a Doppler? I told you, I need a CT scan and a heparin drip,” she remembers telling the team. The ultrasound revealed nothing, so they sent her for the CT, and sure enough, several small blood clots had settled in her lungs. Minutes later she was on the drip. “I was like, listen to Dr. Williams!”

Such a scrape with death makes for a sensational story when it features an icon; but it’s also the story of millions of women of color across the nation, as ProPublica explores in a searing investigative series on the effect socioeconomics has on motherhood in America.

One piece in that series, titled “How Hospitals Are Failing Black Mothers,” carries special poignance given Williams’ ordeal. “It’s been long-established that black women… fare worse in pregnancy and childbirth, dying at a rate more than triple that of white mothers. And while part of the disparity can be attributed to factors like poverty and inadequate access to health care, there is growing evidence that points to the quality of care at hospitals where a disproportionate number of black women deliver, which are often in neighborhoods disadvantaged by segregation,” writes Annie Waldman.

Indeed, the public data highlights that when it comes to death and disease, from cancer to blood disorders to postpartum complications, the American medical system has a stubborn and long-standing racial gap.