Friday marks the end of Black Women’s Maternal Health Week. We present the second in a two-part interview with first lady Tammy Murphy on the systemic problems contributing to New Jersey’s maternal health “crisis,” particularly for Black women, and how the Nurture NJ program is primed to address those problems.
“I absolutely would tell you institutional racism is one hundred percent of the root cause and we continue to see it across a number of areas and we have to just work together. This week in particular, being Black Maternal Health Awareness Week, it’s a chance to elevate those voices and explain to people that there is a challenge we are suffering from not just here in New Jersey, by the way, across the country,” Murphy said.
“I’m very excited because there is somewhere around $33 million in the budget for this year that is going to explicitly tackle a lot of the areas that are presented in that plan,” she said. These include training a doula workforce, ensuring Medicaid reimbursement for that workforce and extending Medicaid coverage for 365 days post-partum.
