The State Department of Health would be charged with creating a medical panel to review the state’s high fetal and infant mortality rate while examining deaths of infants up to one year of age.
Amid high emotions Wednesday, the Mississippi Senate passed a strike-all amendment to a bill that would create a medical panel to review the state’s high fetal and infant mortality rate. The panel would be multidisciplinary and composed of such members as deemed appropriate by the State Department of Health.
HB 1637, originally authored by State Rep. Missy McGee (R), would establish the Fetal and Infant Mortality Review Panel to examine deaths of infants up to one year of age. The panel would also develop strategies to prevent deaths.
The measure provides legal immunity for review panel members in civil and criminal proceedings. Additionally, the review panel would be allowed to hold closed meetings. However, votes, rules, and regulations must be taken during an opening meeting.
“The operation of this panel, just like other panels in almost all states, for years and years and years, are not subject to public access. They are intentionally held in private. The procedure and the individual participating cannot be called to testify,” said State Senator Hob Bryan (D), chairman of the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee. “All to make sure there is open and robust discussion of what is taking place.”
What started as a heated debate over two amendments offered by State Senator Angela Hill (R) quickly turned to silence when State Senator Michael McLendon (R) spoke about the heartbreak of losing two grandsons just days before they were to be born.
Hills’ first amendment would require the panel to review the child’s immunization and medical records to analyze any immunizations and emergency countermeasures administered within 90 days before the child’s death, including in cases of sudden infant death syndrome and sudden unexpected infant death.
“I would ask that you put this language in this bill. There’s no harm in it,” Hill urged her colleagues before the amendment passed. “If they truly want to look at how a child really dies, this language needs to be put in it.”
Hill’s second amendment failed. That amendment would have required the review panel’s report to be subject to the Mississippi Public Records Law and made available for public review. Under the failed amendment, personal identifiable information and HIPPA information would have been redacted.
Chairman Bryan opposed both of Hill’s amendments.
Prior to the chamber’s vote on final passage of the bill, Senator Bryan yielded the podium to Senator McLendon. As he spoke, the chamber fell silent as side chats between politicians and Senate staff ceased.
In a shaky voice, McLendon told of his twin grandsons who died last year after a stillborn birth.
“What is it about our state that causes this?” he asked, adding that there are ways to write reports without putting participants’ names in them.
McLendon said Mississippians need to know why the state has the highest infant mortality rate in the U.S. If it is because of vaccines, poisonous drinking water, poor air quality, or if Mississippians are under too much stress, the public deserves to know, he said.
Ending his 15-minute extemporaneous speech, McLendon said with his voice cracking from emotions, “I cannot cry anymore. Our family has cried a bazillion tears. I don’t want any family to go through this. No more! No more!”
“But I do know one day,” he said, looking toward heaven, “that I will be holding those two little boys’ hands, because I have a loving God. And right now, He’s holding their hands.”
Senator McLendon walked out of the well of the Senate with the chamber near tears, receiving hugs from his fellow politicians.
The measure went on to unanimously pass in the chamber.
-- Article credit to Daniel Tyson for the Magnolia Tribune --
