There came a point when the chills, fever and cramps were so intense that Lynn Callaway thought she might die.

Callaway was having a miscarriage, and had developed an infection. She wanted abortion-inducing medication or surgery to help empty her uterus and bring her suffering to an end. But, in a federal complaint filed Monday, Callaway says she’d already been refused that type of care at two Austin area emergency rooms, and felt she had no choice but to endure alone at home.

Her husband, Mario, was unwilling to accept that his otherwise healthy 40-year-old wife was suddenly wan and bleeding on the floor, while their young son watched in alarm. He wanted to take her to New Mexico or Colorado to get the care they say they were wrongfully denied in Texas. But she was too weak to sustain the trip.

When they finally saw her doctor days later, Callaway was prescribed abortion-inducing drugs to pass the miscarriage. In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Callaway said when she pressed her doctor on why it had taken three medical facilities four days to treat her, she was told the emergency room would “have to be damned sure that it’s an actual miscarriage to be offering the pill.”

Michigan took another step Monday in its effort to eliminate medical debt for thousands of residents.

The state announced it would wipe out $74 million in medical debt for 71,871 individuals. It’s the second round of a program that began last year, when the state said it would help residents erase more than $144 million in medical debt.

The move comes amid a bipartisan push to offer patients more protections from collections by keeping them from going underwater on their hospital bills.

Officials say more than $200 million in medical debt has been forgiven for roughly 280,000 Michiganders since the program launched last year.

Nearly two dozen Oregon rural hospitals will receive $37.5 million in state and federal funds to shore up labor and delivery care ahead of Medicaid cuts going into effect next year, though state and hospital officials say the one-time funds are likely a limited solution.

The program, which was greenlit by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services last month, combines $15 million in state dollars with more than $22 million in federal matching funds. The money will be distributed to the state’s 21 rural hospitals that provide maternity care, most of which are more than 50 miles from the next closest birth center.

The funding was announced after a number of rural hospitals across Oregon have closed — or threatened to close — their labor and delivery units, which typically cost more to operate than they bring in. As InvestigateWest highlighted, these services are often eliminated when a struggling hospital is trying to prevent closure altogether.

Oregon officials described this new assistance as a short-term buffer against the financial pressures facing rural hospitals that put their maternity services at risk, including rising costs, staffing shortages, and looming changes in Medicaid eligibility and spending.

Parents of a 2-year-old girl involved in a drowning incident on Memorial Day have sued to stop Texas Children’s Hospital from testing if she’s brain dead, testing a new strategy in Texas’ “right to life” movement aimed at giving people as much access to life-supporting services as possible.

While most fights to keep patients on life support begin after they’ve been given a brain death diagnosis, Annelise Camp’s parents are battling the hospital at an earlier stage, the testing phase.

“This is not settled science,” said state Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands, who has helped drive the public’s attention to the Camps, who live in Cypress.

Brain death is defined in Texas law as the irreversible cessation of brain function. Under the law, once a patient is declared brain dead, a hospital can withdraw life-sustaining measures.

The embattled director of the Michigan Department of Corrections is defending conditions inside the state prisons.

Heidi Washington, who is facing calls for removal over treatment of female prisoners, on Thursday wrote a letter to US Rep. Debbie Dingell claiming that her department “has established itself as a national leader” and “prisoner grievances” are common.

“We recognize that prison remains a complicated and at times challenging environment, particularly as many in the population we serve have increasingly complex needs,” Washington wrote.

Dingell, D-Ann Arbor, urged Whitmer to intervene after three women at the facility died within a month of one another.