What is it like to give birth in a hospital where your life is traded for your freedom? How and why has hospital imprisonment become an institutionalized post-birth experience for BIPOC women around the globe? What kind of silences are built around this practice, and how are mothers and families fighting back against them? 

This podcast combines creative ethnographic storytelling, first person narration, conversation, and critical analysis to understand a global health phenomena called "hospital detention",whereby mothers and newborn babies are routinely imprisoned within hospitals following birth in order to forcibly extract surgical fees from their families and communities. Co-hosted by anthropologist Alissa Jordan and birth activist and photojournalist China Tolliver, this episode explores the emergence of these “hospital-prisons” in Haiti and around the world. We focus on two Haitian mothers—Likna and Naomi—and their experiences of birthing in Euro-American mission hospitals where they were then imprisoned. 

Held captive with their infants, and neither provided food, water, or toiletries, these US-operated hospitals leveraged Naomi, Likna, and their companions as “corporeal collateral”---holding them hostage in order to force families and communities to pay outstanding debts for obstetric surgeries.  We connect their stories to broader conversations on birth justice and racial capitalism, highlighting how hospital-prison works to commericalize kin ties and collateralize black and brown bodies. 

Called global public health’s “open secret” (Cowgill & Ntatumbe 2019) the practice of hospital detention is widespread—a standard practice in western neoliberal medicine across 52 countries of the world. It overwhelmingly impacts black women, indigenous women, and women of color and their babies during birth journeys. In spite of its ubiquity, the amount of academic articles written on the practice can fit in a single hand---even though local journalists across the world (from Kinshasa to Nairobi, and Madhya Pradesh to Bogota) have published volumes of accounts on mothers (and others) experiences of clinical captivity.  

Special thanks to "Likna", "Naomi", "Nel", "Guerlande", "Marcele", "Pierre" and to Carmelle and Jennifer at MamaBaby Haiti, to Robert Yates & Chatham House, Dr. Karen Cowgill at the University of Washington and Prof. Abel Ntambue of the University of Lubumbashi, Prof. Kakudji Yumba Pascal of the University of Lubumbashi, to Maria Cheng of the Associated Press, and to Charmaine Jordan 

English Mastered by: Jared Blalock www.molotovbliss.com Sound Credits: Nicu Hospital Beeps by JGeralyn, freesound.org; Tearing Paper Sound Effect by Keweldog freesound.org; Cash Register by CapsLock, freesound.org; Thick Bed Cover, Ruffling Blankets by CMorris035, freesound.org; Pen Click and Writing by BarkersPinhead, freesound.org; Cafe Ambient Sound by EVSecrets, freesound.org; Tearing paper by Panska Stranska Michaela, freesound.org; Stamp by Desrsuperanton freesound.org; Creaky Metal Gate by Arnaud Coutancier freesound.org; Haiti ambient street sounds by Kyles freesound.org; Prison Door Closing by BrianBaltar freesound.org; Emergency Room Sounds by Bruno Auzet freesound.org; Chopping Vegetables by Ancorapazzo freesound.org; Fence Rattling by Starvolt freesound.org; Running in the Forest by Taira Komori freesound.org; Dishes by Bevibeldesign freesound.org; Sipping Drink by VPP 2015 freesound.org; Person Falling by Blouhound freesound.org; Dufflebag by JRSevers3 freesound.org; Frying Roasting Vegetables in Oil by Neil RAouf freesound.org; Short Run and Stop by Lekingoo freesound.org

Dr. Karen Cowgill is an epidemiologist based in Seattle, whose Fulbright Fellowship to the Democratic Republic of Congo led to important collaborative research on maternal hospital detention with Professor Abel Ntambue of the University of Lubumbashi. Dr. Cowgill sat down with China Tolliver and Dr. Alissa Jordan (remotely) to discuss hospital detention, her research, and maternal health. In this clip, Cowgill connects hospital detention to other birth injustices, as a fundamental violation of women's autonomy that is not exceptional but connected to myriad other ongoing violations of autonomy that women can experience during birthing. 

Dr. Karen Cowgill is an epidemiologist based in Seattle, whose Fulbright Fellowship to the Democratic Republic of Congo led to important collaborative research on maternal hospital detention with Professor Abel Ntambue of the University of Lubumbashi. Dr. Cowgill sat down with China Tolliver and Dr. Alissa Jordan (remotely) to discuss hospital detention, her research, and maternal health. In this clip, Cowgill describes what it means that hospital detention is an "open secret" in global public health, as she describes in her co-authored piece (with Abel Ntambue), “Hospital detention of mothers and their infants at a large provincial hospital: a mixed-methods descriptive case study, Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo”, Dr. Cowgill and Dr. Ntambue call hospital detention a “gendered violence”.

Dr. Karen Cowgill is an epidemiologist based in Seattle, whose Fulbright Fellowship to the Democratic Republic of Congo led to important collaborative research on maternal hospital detention with Professor Abel Ntambue of the University of Lubumbashi. Dr. Cowgill sat down with China Tolliver and Dr. Alissa Jordan (remotely) to discuss hospital detention, her research, and maternal health. In this clip, Cowgill describes why hospital detention is a gendered violence, and how she came to the decision to name it as such in her co-authored article (with Abel Ntambue), “Hospital detention of mothers and their infants at a large provincial hospital: a mixed-methods descriptive case study, Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo”, Dr. Cowgill and Dr. Ntambue call hospital detention a “gendered violence”.

Dr. Karen Cowgill is an epidemiologist based in Seattle, whose Fulbright Fellowship to the Democratic Republic of Congo led to important collaborative research on maternal hospital detention with Professor Abel Ntambue of the University of Lubumbashi. Dr. Cowgill sat down with China Tolliver and Dr. Alissa Jordan (remotely) to discuss hospital detention, her research, and maternal health. In this clip, Cowgill describes how her Fulbright—originally on a very different topic—was quickly transformed into a project on hospital detention while working at Jason Sendwe Hospital in Lubumbashi. 

Prof. Pascal Yumba Kakudji is a professor at the Faculty of Law – University of Lubumbashi, and the head of the Department of Private and Judicial Law, and his research focuses on medical law and bioethics. He sat down (remotely) with Alissa Jordan for a conversation about bioethics and hospital detention, an area of research that he has been invested in since 2014. In this track, listen to Kakudji describe the geographic distribution of nations where hospital detention is prevalent, and also hear about the bioethical problems that the practice creates.

Prof. Pascal Yumba Kakudji is a professor at the Faculty of Law – University of Lubumbashi, and the head of the Department of Private and Judicial Law, and his research focuses on medical law and bioethics. He sat down (remotely) with Alissa Jordan for a conversation about bioethics and hospital detention, an area of research that he has been invested in since 2014. In this track, Kakudji  discusses how medical detention challenges State juridical systems, executing a "private" form of justice, enforcement, and stripping of rights, that challenges State sovereignty . At the end of this talk, Kakudji reflects on the paths towards disconnecting the medical care system from imprisonment practices.

Alissa Jordan and China Tolliver sat down to speak with Robert Yates, Executive Director of Universal Health Coverage at the Chatham House in the UK. In this clip, Yates discusses how countries have used bans on imprisoning mothers and new babies as a first step towards Universal Health Coverage

Alissa Jordan and China Tolliver sat down to speak with Robert Yates, Executive Director of Universal Health Coverage at the Chatham House in the UK. In this track, Robert Yates discusses the difficulties that families face when they grapple with deciding to pursue healthcare in systems with user fees. 

Alissa Jordan and China Tolliver sat down to speak with Robert Yates, Executive Director of Universal Health Coverage at the Chatham House in the UK. In this track, Robert remembers his mother's story of falling ill as a child, and the decisions that had to be made about survival when the cost of care threatened to bankrupt her family.