Is this occurence the result of having no health insurance or a case of blatant racism?

There are waaaay too many details to narrow it down to this or that. It could have been neither. The article does not say what were her presenting symptoms nor anything about her history. If she came to a busy ER and said that her stomach hurt but not pregnant and had no other presenting symptoms, most likely she was not a made a top priority patient to be seen. She was not refused care but made to wait.

There are many people who present in ERs that can easily be seen in an outpatient clinic or during an office visit. Triage nurses sometimes have to make split second decisions about how fast a patient is seen based on presenting symptoms, knowledge, and intuition. This woman may have been obese (easily to not see the pregnancy bulge), may not have appeared to be in much distress, may have denied pregnancy, and may have had a history of abusing ER services......we just don't know all the details.

If she had been seen and treated in time, every effort would have been made to stop the labor contractions with IV medication. It can't be presumed that she would have delivered a premature infant.......... and the concommitant cost of treating a premature infant.

Most pregnant women have a doctor already, do prenatal care and call their doctor before going to the hospital. If a woman shows up at an emergency room with a premature baby situation she is taking a big gamble. I think the story is tragic, but in an imperfect world errors will be made. Not all emergency care is good care.

"Abney had no idea she was pregnant when she began having severe pains."

I think everyone is racist. Only cowards act on their racist thoughts or use the race card for public gain.

Nobody knew this girl was pregnant, to include the girl. Vegas has enough mixed couples to say this was not a case of blatant racism. Severe pains cannot wait several hours to be treated.

...

That is a terrible tragedy, yet I can't help but think something is very fishy here. How could she have had no idea that she was pregnant up until the moment of child birth??? Growing stomach? 6 months of missed periods?

As far as racism goes, I don't see any evidence of that, and it is foolish to assume that without any clear information. I mean really.....how can you even suggest it is racially motivated, much less 'blatant, when there is zero evidence to support that?

just the state of the current american health care system.

she should have been helped, I can't believe they didn't