Blatantly wrong the bottom line on u. S. Politics and policies a matter of fact on the world. Hello and welcome to rewind were back here at comic museum of Islamic Jihad for another look back at some of the best documentaries weve brought you over the past 10 years. This week were returning to the United States and 2013 at that time Cleveland Ohio was experiencing one of the highest rates of infant mortality in the industrialized world disproportionately affecting africanamerican malpas since the racial gap is growing wider and many mothers continue to experience this tragic loss thats why weve chosen to air this important investigation again from aljazeera as faultline series here is americas infant mortality crisis. Every year in america over 11000. 00 babies die on the day that theyre born. Most are just born too early theyre vital organs hearts and lungs still on form. Even those who survive beyond 24 hours often dying before their 1st birthday. But if the baby is africanamerican they are more than twice as likely to die. Both lines tramples to Cleveland Ohio to look at whats causing these deaths and to try to find out why the United States has the worst rates of infant mortality in the industrialized world. Its monday morning in clevelands metro health hospital. A newborn baby boy has just been rushed into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit close to me curious. Weighing just over 2 pounds hes 14 weeks premature. It means he was only in the womb for less than 6 months is really frightening to see his Blood Pressure very low or high right now trying to get cancer the baby has just been born here literally within the last couple hours right now getting respiration assistance and an intravenous drip inserted this is the kind of summary of the happens over time on this board for. Medical advances have dramatically improved the odds of survival for premature babies but they havent changed one aspect of this crisis. That almost all of the babies in this ward a black. Just under 40 percent of the babies who are born are african in their. But they contribute. To the babies. In the 1st year of life so you have this huge huge huge disparity and thats kind of business as usual its. Baby time is just as all but hes on a life support machine. The nurse is a worried about his chances of survival. Is so premature he cant breathe without a machine pumping oxygen through his tiny lungs. Its an extreme measure for such a small baby it puts him at high risk for infection and internal bleeding. To. Say well its an agonizing time. But stay with him. A single mother with 3 other children. Keep the family just above the poverty line. So i had to go. After working an overnight shift finishing at 7 in the morning. Having contractions. She was rushed to hospital and gave birth. But now she has to get back to work. This. He did come now and then hes going to be in hospital. For the next couple of minutes somebody that can. Prevent such an oxygen being personally theres a little bit of that even if a baby can be saved in an e. Q. Its an outcome and the cost doctors say could be prevented youre literally talking about several 1000 Dollars Per Day so if you have a baby whos been the hospital for 8 months the math is pretty easy youre closing in on a 1000000. 00 a care just to get back baby home if you could prevent one of those preemies you save the system hundreds of thousands of dollars thats why you know access to care and prenatal care is so vital. If you have to have a baby born prematurely United States is one of the best places in the world for that baby to be born are enable intensive care units are some of the best if not the best in the world thats not the point. Dr author james is one of the leading infant mortality experts in the United States he says that the heart of the problem lies outside of the hospitals unfortunately in this country when we experience families who are in crisis we generally throw everything in the kitchen sink at them to try to assist and help during that period of time but we are not anywhere close to being that legal and about trying to practice Preventive Medicine about trying to keep families out of crisis. Everywhere you look in cleveland it seems those crises are playing out. Right here in the last. Yet in a corner of a Public Cemetery 24 year old lemay is visiting the grave of infant son jason. He died 2 weeks ago. The burial site some marks with nothing more than wooden sticks but each one represents a story of personal loss. Just an hour ago. And just dont feel like people right here just a bunch of dirt. Is in the hospital. After such a right of. Her. Because most families. I think how much better. When they had given birth to twins who were more than 3 months premature jaycee ons brother died within the 1st few hours the surviving child spent time in intensive care before he was healthy enough to leave the hospital. Linae says everything was normal until one my. When jason was 4 months old he stopped breathing in his sleep and died. I dont know where he was but something so warm and i woke up when i could sum up it was just like. That. The doctors told him a it was sudden infant death syndrome or seeds the 3rd leading cause of infant down. Cycles p. C. R. And this the p. C. L. So my kids are my so i kiss our heart. Now linae is focused on raising her 2 year old daughter and 6 year old son out of school from an escort and working 7 days a week at no cost. Is just clutter but everything stress everything. And i just feel so horrible because i was unable to 1st take my kids and everybody stays cause we have protected good as a player that i asked like i say oh. So what is it thats causing so many babies to die here in the city. Why are those babies predominately africanamerican and whats being done to try to stop it. And. The reasons for in for more time its a complex good one everyone agrees is the poverty plays upon. The rates of worst in the cities of the south in the rust belt with their legacies of economic collapse and racial division. And one of the hardest hit cities is cleveland. Here the Unemployment Rate for whites is around 6 percent. Traffic in americans that number is almost 3 times lion. Like many cities across america the sights of boarded up businesses and devastated neighborhoods is something thats become increasingly common but whats remarkable about cleveland is that it also happens to be the worst city in the entire United States but in from what oddities. In cleveland there are neighborhoods where the infant mortality rate is worse than that of countries like guatemala botswana and even north korea. Eric price is a lifelong cleveland resident. He says the scale of the problem is the product of living in a forgotten city should be a great area it was great for bringing up kids it was great educationally there was a middle class typical middle class midwestern neighborhood. Eric remembers these neighborhoods as prosperous places when transports oil and steel drove the citys economy. But now there are no jobs of course theres no money theyve a start tearing down schools they dont care about educational systems in the care about a health care you know i know parents who struggle to feed their kids on a daily basis. We literally have nothing. With the collapse of those communities have come soaring rates of infant mortality fact is the social historians of the city say. Sometimes we want to deal with just the medical piece which is really important because people are dying babies are dying but we also have to look at what is feeding that continuously and if people dont have access to good housing they dont have access to healthy food if they dont have access to money to buy food all of those things then were going to continue to see these kinds of statistics. 21 year old ariel smith is homeless unemployed and 8 months pregnant with her 1st child. The father of her unborn baby was sent to prison 2 months ago. Shes been struggling to get by under since. The situation i mean theres not a situation for anybody pregnant to being. The be homeless and then i have a child on the way this is the worst situation that i feel like i could possibly be. Ariel has known haunch it i retired life. She was raised in foster care and she says. Her baby will be the only real family she has ever known. I dont have a. Heart. You know somebodys going to. Only support is charles rest away in a Community Health worker. Charles retta works for a program called moms 1st that supports new and expecting mothers in clevelands toughest neighborhoods. To provide the women with Information Support we. Help them get some of the things they need for their babies. But over the years has been doing a lot more than just Offering Health advice the 1st chance she spends most of her time helping women navigate what she says is a broken welfare system. People who work with you know the situation. Today is helping ariel get Food Assistance that has been slow to come you know she said she. Prayed that she had a benefit. She would have to get help. Now to put it back on the back of the burner she still has. You have to go to 5 different interviews before you get. So it takes a while to get. That i dont want to have to have. For 36 months i dont want to have to have a full 12 months you know like i want to really depend on myself at this time i do need. To pursue her education but was told that she wouldnt be eligible for welfare unless she took an unpaid job even though shes pregnant is life for me anyway is life so i want to deal with it is no other way around it lot of Times Program to stuff all they care about is numbers they dont care about people care about people. Who is convinced the system is failing to address the root causes of problems that it was designed to solve. This is a good stop cut news program is helping people who doesnt change. Doesnt youre going to see. Babies dying in. The more family tragedies thats what you got to see. Cleveland has always been the worst city in america in for mortality. The problem at a National Level has actually been improving clevelands numbers have been getting worse. Figures attracted by the Citys Department of health so weve come hits in city hall to speak to the. Doing to address what many here are saying is a crisis facing the city. As clevelands Public Health director. Is in charge of pregnancy programs like the designed to help pregnant mothers. Despite the success of that program some that its only reaching a fraction of the population needs help. First program we have had tremendous success in fact our most recent reports on our if it mortality rate demonstrate that there has been a steady decline in the rate of our participant population the city of cleveland if you compare the rate its worse than any other us city ok so are you aware of that not that we were the absolute worst. Did you think you were in the bottom 5 cleveland is one of the cities one of the major large metropolitan cities that has a major issue with every mortality as well as many of the other Health Care Issues but if you look at the picture of the city the rate the worst in countries like albania and sri lanka this is this is actually not something you can be proud of were not nor we indicate that were proud of our numbers were proud of the effort were proud of the effort that clevelanders are putting forth to begin to address this. Thank you. So much since by the women who are falling outside the net. Here to stay. Off the walking out of the interview we were told that the official wasnt prepared for such specific questions even though weve been clear we wanted to speak about infant mortality throughout cleveland well that was a surprising response to some Pretty Simple questions i mean just thinking for me was that not only do the fishes here in cleveland not seem to want to talk about the city one rate of infant mortality they also dont even seem to know quite how bad those numbers are. Clevelands economic struggles its decayed neighborhoods with their rampant unemployment levels and an even access to health care have combined to turn the city into americas infant mortality capital. But if that wasnt a perfect enough storm now politicians at the state level considering the cuts to health care. The politicians in columbus are playing games to be quite blunt and we may not get can literally billions of dollars that we have coming to us that were were spending the money but it may not be coming back to us because politicians of this. They want to play politics. With disastrous 1st date ill certainly be disastrous for the hospital making. This summer ohios state capital columbus was the scene of heated debate over whether or not to expand Health Care Coverage for the working poor. Question is shall they meant to be agreed upon ohios Republican Controlled Legislature turned down 13000000000. 00 in extra funding from the federal government for what appeared to be ideological reasons i urged the failure of of this amendment they even rejected a comparatively small emergency measure aimed at reducing the states woeful infant mortality rate we asked for in this budget 3800000. 00 to be targeted where the masses of racial and ethnic minorities live in the state of ohio allowing infants to live until their 1st birthday. Senates attracted to virus has been working for years to redress Racial Health disparities in ohio. She proposed an amendment to ohios budget to Fund Health Programs to specifically reducing from mortality in minority communities every public official will hold up a baby will talk about how children are greatest assets but it seems to some communities in the community that i represent that some babies matter more than others those posts a nay the proposal went nowhere the majority voting to move ahead without the amendment for doing all for the poor but you dont do it by making it easy for them to stand poverty you have to drive them out make them uncomfortable in their poverty and they will do for themselves they were earn for themselves and they will be much better off at the end of the day. When they have earned it on their own versus when they have gotten handouts. Why even with politicians in a state clearly in the midst of a crisis with such high numbers of babies dying before their 1st birthday turned down money that could make a real difference. Its a simple question look many it seems didnt want to and so i mean we wanted a short conversation with anybody on the republican side to talk about yeah this part is there anyone else is willing to speak so im going to him so i dont think he. Would like to schools and unions for 5 minutes i know he chucked the day lecture years ago thanks for much just about infant mortality and health care for veterans in the past thank you for eventually we did catch up with one of them republican state senator chris jordan ohio Sebastian Walker from ground 0 rest mostly just on one time with in ohio you know where this is you know one of the worst states in the country. Ive got to say that im really just very briefly right there your comments on that and at every just really briefly this is one of the worst places in the entire town of jenin or. Just we just get to your position really really really quickly senator so. Just just a couple of minutes ago time. We live in a system where racism is still prevalent. And there are stereotypes and caricature they follow certain people white going single black while others ventured out doing your best in living off the system youre driving cadillacs all of us thought to have no basis in reality. Racism. Poverty or energy. And i think each makes the other worse but i think racism is the venom in the bud of poverty so i would say to the politicians ok to stop thinking about you all just fail ok start thinking about the people who put you in there ok helpful empathy for them have some sympathy for them. Before leaving ohio we went to see one of the mothers weve met earlier in our time here. Has just given birth to the boy she was expecting to adhere to shes named. Somare was full term but substantially underweight. She had several birth defects including a cleft lip and palate. Once i saw her it may mean you know like sad and depressed but its something that. Really got over because i only see what im hearing early whether live is fixed or not. She has been taking care of this area was still homeless and waiting for Public Housing to come through. But now with a new born baby to take carol. So what kind of future are you hoping for for something. I definitely want her to have a better Education One better education and a better group of people a Better Society to live. I mean for that family or hers only make the best of it but when i bet they get a test with their feet more. Somewhere away from here. In 2009 a torture victim of the brutal arjen time the delhi regime confronted his interrogator who tortured no no no i wasnt oratory i was in target has justice now been served for the atrocious crimes committed decades earlier i do the truth you are telling lies and investigation into the dark history of argentina why didnt they kill me in the end rewind interrogating a torture on aljazeera. The latest news as it breaks. Ranks it is just finished for the down to the end of the transition period thats just begun with details coverage due in studies that show that around 30 percent of people in conflicts are likely to suffer from some form of Mental Illness from around the world the government here has said only essential workers will return the others not for another week at least. Heading home special flights leave japan carrying hundreds of u. S. Citizens quarantine 2 to coronavirus on a cruise ship. In Mainland China a 100 more people die at the center of the epidemic almost 2000 new infections. Follow him down jordan the south as iraq lawyer from doha also coming up the u. N. Says an arms embargo in libya has become a joke as diplomatic efforts continue to end the violence. Plus a u. N. Push to get more countries to help millions of afghan refugees based in the full stop. Welcome to the program 2 flights evacuating u. S. Citizens who were stuck on a cruise ship with hundreds of coronavirus cases on board have now left japan those who are infected staying behind the ships being quarantined in the port of yokohama 355. 00 passengers tested positive for the virus among them 44. 00 u. S. Citizens will be treated in hospitals in japan where china is confirmed another 105. 00 deaths on sunday raising the total number of dead on the mainland to 1770 around 2000 more people have tested positive for the virus and another person has died outside of china a taxi driver in taiwan became the 5th atallah to outside the mainland an elderly chinese tourist in france was the 1st to die outside of asia other deaths have been reported in hong kong japan and the philippines well