This story is part of our monthly series, Campus Dispatch. Read the rest of the stories in the series here.
For years, Louisiana had some of the highest rates in the country for maternal mortality and sexually transmitted infections (STDs). According to the World Population Review, as of 2024, the state had the 15th highest maternal mortality rateand US News and World Report was mentioned had the second highest rate of STDs. Louisiana’s young adults continue to face barriers when seeking reproductive and sexual health care.
About one a quarter of Louisiana’s approximately 4.7 million residents they are young people under 18, women of childbearing age, or both, according to a recent report by Doctors for Human Rights. Despite the large number of people who need OB-GYN care, they are getting appointments and getting care it’s incredibly difficult.
Kelly Baquet is a nurse who works with Planned Parenthood in New Orleans. He said patients often lack information about sexual and reproductive health.
“One of the biggest barriers for people coming to seek care for gynecological problems, such as painful periods, irregular periods, vaginal problems and birth control, is that they don’t have information about what to do,” Baquet said. “The state of Louisiana doesn’t really have sexual health in the classroom, so a lot of my younger ones didn’t know they had a choice or that something was wrong.”
A March 2024 report by Lift Louisiana, Physicians for Human Rights, Reproductive Health Impact, and the Center for Reproductive Rights highlight the changing landscape of OB-GYN care in a state that already has a crisis of adverse maternal health outcomes.
The report, titled “Criminalized Care,” includes interviews with both patients and health care providers for a comprehensive look at the deteriorating state of pregnancy and maternal care in Louisiana. A significant portion of the study focused on the state’s failing health care infrastructure as a result Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the increasing restriction of abortion access in Louisiana.
About a third of Louisiana’s population lives in rural areas that already lack access to effective OB-GYN care, according to the Criminalized Care report. More than 300,000 women in Louisiana live in “contraceptive deserts” where “reasonable access to a health center offering the full range of contraceptive methods” is limited, the report said.
Students generally have a difficulty accessing adequate health care as it is. Students like Julianna Jackson, an undergraduate student at Louisiana State University, are working to push back against this rule in the state.
Jackson is an officer of Feminists in Action, an LSU student organization that promotes intersectional feminism and awareness on campus and in the surrounding community. She said students often struggle to access OB-GYN care.
“It’s especially difficult for college students who may not be home with their family doctors or know how to get in touch with a doctor,” Jackson said. “Our campus doctors are doing their best, [but] they are just so overloaded. We have an OB-GYN on campus, but it’s extremely difficult to get an appointment because they’re so busy.”
Doctors at specialty hospitals — which are often located in more urban parts of the state, such as New Orleans — noticed an increase in referrals from rural hospitals after the Dobbs decision, the Punished Care report found. One doctor explained that rural hospital attorneys often advise providers to transfer patients experiencing a pregnancy-related emergency rather than treat them. Increasing patient volume at certain facilities increases existing delays in care, according to the report.
Baquet said she sees pregnant patients who have been advised to wait until 10 or 12 weeks into their pregnancy to be seen by an OB-GYN because of long wait times, and some non-pregnant patients who have had to wait up to five months for doctors’ appointments which they already see. She added that some of her patients only learn about services at Planned Parenthood by hearing from classmates or community members.
At Planned Parenthood in New Orleans, patients can get same-day care and same-day access to birth control. Baquet said patients are often surprised to find wait times short because of the months-long waits at many other offices.
“Our patients don’t wait six to eight months to come and see us—they can make an appointment the same day,” Baquet said. “We often say, ‘Oh my God, they took care of me the same day!’ or “I didn’t even know you existed. I was telling a friend that I couldn’t get to my OB and someone told me to come over.”
Feminists in Action partners with Planned Parenthood for events and roundtables on campus, and the group works to connect students with resources and education about reproductive and sexual health. Last year, Feminists in Action distributed 1,500 boxes of emergency contraception for free to people around campus.
Afterwards, Jackson said the group plans to continue distributing free “no questions asked” emergency contraception to bridge the gap between access to health care and college students.
“It is [students] we can be contacted and we are very quick to respond,” Jackson said. “We can give them exactly what they need, or we can point them in the right direction to what they might need.”
