網壇傳奇塞雷娜·威廉姆斯是公認的全球最偉大運動員之一，甚至可能是有史以來。她最近又實現了另一項驚人的里程碑——《Vogue》在一篇生動的人物專訪中提到，她在分娩后挽救了自己的生命。威廉姆斯的可怕經歷備受矚目，它是種族不平等現象的一個縮影，而這種現象仍在美國的醫療系統中揮之不去。

《Vogue》概述了威廉姆斯產生血栓，必須接受抗凝血治療，并因此在分娩后一天發現事態糟糕的經過：

次日，塞雷娜在醫院康復時，忽然感覺喘不過氣來。由于她有血栓的病史，又因為最近的手術而停用了常規抗凝藥物，她立刻猜測自己又一次肺栓塞了。（塞雷娜生活在對血栓的恐懼之中。）她走出了病房以免母親擔心，并喘息著告訴最近的護士自己立刻需要CT增強掃描以及IV肝素（一種血液稀釋劑）。護士覺得止痛藥可能把她搞糊涂了，但是塞雷娜堅持要做，很快，醫生就對她的腿部進行了超聲檢查。她還記得自己對醫療團隊說：“這是多普勒檢查？我跟你說了我要CT掃描和肝素點滴?！背暿裁炊紱]有檢查出來，所以他們把她送去了CT室，果然，她的肺里已經有了一些小血栓。幾分鐘后，她掛上了點滴?！案杏X就像是聽威廉姆斯醫生的一樣！”

一個名人這樣與死神擦肩而過，就會成為轟動性的故事。但在探索社會經濟學對美國母親產生了何種影響的一系列嚴格調查中，ProPublica發現，美國數百萬有色人種的女性也在經歷這類故事。

其中一份調查以“醫院如何疏忽對待黑人母親”為題，對威廉姆斯遭遇的痛苦經歷進行了尖銳的分析。安妮·瓦爾德曼寫道：“一直以來，黑人女性……在懷孕和分娩上遭受了更差的待遇，她們在此期間的死亡率是白人母親的三倍以上。盡管部分差異可以用貧窮和就醫困難來解釋，但越來越多的證據表明，黑人女性數量很多的醫院提供的護理質量存在問題。這些醫院往往位于種族隔離導致的弱勢社區?！?

確實，公開數據明確顯示，在死亡率和患病率方面，從癌癥到血液病到產后并發癥，美國醫療系統存在的種族差異性難以改變且由來已久。（財富中文網）

譯者：嚴匡正

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.