Pretty Brown Eyes

He drove his wife to one of the best hospitals in America for a planned caesarean. A routine one. Her second. Charles Johnson watched her blood collect in a catheter bag for ten hours while he asked for help. Kira Johnson died at 2:22am. Cedars-Sinai, Los Angeles, 12th April 2016. Kira Johnson was 39. She spoke five languages, raced cars, ran marathons. The caesarean was scheduled. Everything about it was routine. Her son Langston was delivered at midday. By the afternoon her husband could see blood in her catheter. He told a nurse. He was told they would check. He asked again. And again. A CT scan was ordered and then not performed. He has described being told, at one point, that his wife was simply not a priority right now. He stood in a corridor for ten hours asking people to look at his wife. They took her back to theatre just after midnight. There were three litres of blood in her abdomen. She died shortly after. Her son Langston was twelve hours old. Charles Johnson has spent the decade since as one of the most effective advocates in American maternal health. He founded 4Kira4Moms. He has testified before Congress. The federal Black maternal health legislation introduced in recent years carries work he pushed for. He talks about one thing more than any other, and it is not the medicine. It is the ten hours. He was standing right there, in the building, awake, articulate, asking. And it made no difference at all.