A new study on maternal deaths should be approved by the Board of Medicine and delivered to the Legislature, according to a group of medical experts from Idaho.
Reviews of maternal deaths become political when state representatives meddle in committee operations.
During a brief meeting on Wednesday, the Idaho Maternal Mortality Review Committee unanimously accepted the proposal for the board to approve the committee’s findings, Idaho Board of Medicine spokesperson Bob McLaughlin told the Idaho Capital Sun following the meeting.
The report will be reviewed at a meeting of the Idaho Board of Medicine scheduled for Thursday at 6:30 a.m.
The goal of the recently reconstituted maternal mortality review committee is to find, examine, and assess maternal deaths in Idaho in order to ascertain whether the mother’s pregnancy was a significant factor or an incidental cause of her death.
The committee’s next report, which is submitted to the Idaho Legislature on January 31, will concentrate on incidents of maternal deaths in 2023. The committee then intends to investigate maternal deaths in 2022, as previously reported by the Sun.
After politicians in 2023 allowed the committee to collapse by failing to renew it, the Legislature rebuilt the committee through a new law approved in 2024. The only U.S. state without a maternal mortality review committee was Idaho in the summer of 2023.
According to the committee’s most recent study, which used data from 2021, the majority of the deaths in Idaho were preventable, and the state’s maternal mortality rate had almost risen in recent years.
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When legal counsel saw that the agenda did not include an executive session in case committee members wanted to discuss report details that might have included private patient information, the committee canceled its initial plan to vote on final approval of the report on Friday, McLaughlin told the Sun in a statement on Tuesday.
“The meeting was canceled and rescheduled for Wednesday to give the required advance public notice of the meeting with the revised agenda in order to avoid violating Idaho Open Meeting law,” he stated.
Medical experts comprise the 12-member committee, which advises the Idaho State Board of Medicine. Last year, the reconstituted committee met twice.
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare was the previous home of the committee. However, the committee was put under the Idaho Board of Medicine, which grants physician licenses, under the new law that restored it.
According to a recent article by the Sun, two physicians who were formerly on the committee and are involved in lawsuits against the state of Idaho or state government agencies about the state’s abortion bans applied but were not chosen. Citing state legal restrictions, Board of Medicine representatives informed the Sun they were unable to explain why specific applicants were not chosen.
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