Doctors are now also required to put in a physician’s order before obtaining the drugs and specify the reason for the prescription, rather than documenting this information afterward, a change that wastes precious time. Some staff did timed drills in advance of October 1 to see how long it would take them to retrieve misoprostol and bring it back to a patient room. As the clock ticks, hemorrhaging patients lose more blood. As Jennifer Avegno, director of the New Orleans Health Department, told the Washington Post: “Most patients would likely make it. But I’ve seen myself what can happen when someone is bleeding out from a miscarriage. And a few minutes could mean life and death in some cases.” If the law does worsen death rates, it could be a while before the public knows because of how maternal mortality review committees work, Sukhavasi said. (Thurman and Miller died in 2022.)
