Tarentum mom delivers baby — and votes from hospital

Megan Walker gave birth to a son on Monday. On Tuesday, Walker told her medical team at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital in Oakland that she needed to be released in time to vote.

She didn’t have to worry about making it to her polling place in Tarentum.

The ballot was delivered to her.

A hospital representative stopped by her room and asked if she wanted to vote.

“It’s important to vote and be a part of the decision on who is running our country, on who is making major decisions for the U.S.,” Walker said from the hospital a day after the birth of son Bryson, her second child. “We have the right to vote in this country, to decide who will make the rules and the tough decisions.”

Walker, 30, was able to cast a ballot because of Pittsburgh Ballots for Patients, a non-partisan initiative affiliated with Election Protection. It’s designed to help patients complete medical or emergency absentee ballots for major elections to ensure they are able to vote even if they’re in a hospital or nursing home, according to its Facebook page.

Courtesy of UPMC

Bryson Drum was born on Nov. 2 at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital. His mother, Megan Walker of Tarentum, admires her newborn. She was able to vote in the presidential election on Nov. 3 via Pittsburgh Ballots for Patients.

Paul O’Hanlon of Wilkinsburg founded Pittsburgh Ballots for Patients in 2008.

“It is so great to be able to do this and to be somebody’s hero for the day,” O’Hanlon said. “I’ve been in the hospital before, and I know how it feels to not be able to leave for whatever reason. We have some amazing volunteers to help these patients get a ballot.”

He said a volunteer got a ballot for a mother from Meadville whose child is in UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. That meant driving to and from Meadville twice. The volunteer told O’Hanlon no mother should have to worry about getting to the polling place when her child is in the hospital.

Walker’s fiance and Bryson’s dad, Mark Drum, 38, said he voted at Holy Martyrs Church in Tarentum, then came back to the hospital to be with his family.

He said this option for Walker was perfect. He didn’t think it would be safe for her to go to a polling place during a pandemic and just after giving birth. And someday they can tell the story to their son, who arrived two weeks early.

“It’s our right and our duty,” said Drum, the day after the birth of his fourth child. “This election is very important. And every vote is really important. We have been going in the right direction for the past four years, and minus the epidemic, we are still doing well considering the circumstances.”

O’Hanlon said he didn’t have the final numbers of ballots the group helped to be cast, but the most they’ve done was 300 in 2012. A retired attorney in housing and disability law, O’Hanlon uses a wheelchair because of a neuromuscular disease.

He takes an application and another form that a patient signs to give him permission to retrieve a ballot for that individual. He then brings those two documents to the City-County Building in Downtown Pittsburgh to get the actual ballot, which he then takes back to the patient. O’Hanlon or another volunteer returns the ballot Downtown to be tallied.

For this presidential election, he acquired emergency ballots for all of the UPMC hospitals in Allegheny County. He said he didn’t expect as many ballots as the last major election since there were more options for early voting.

The idea to do this came when he got a few calls from people in hospitals asking about being able to vote, but there wasn’t a way to get them an emergency absentee ballot.

“These patients don’t plan on being in the hospital,” he said. “So if we can do something to help them with something this important, then we want to do that.”