Eytons' Earth: Natural & Alternative Medicine

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Posted on Mon, Nov. 21, 2005
IN MY OPINION: HEALTH CARE

Patients lament midwives' exit, how news came

KAREN GARLOCH

Employees of Carolinas HealthCare System -- in hospitals and doctors' offices from Charlotte to Kings Mountain to Monroe -- are not allowed to talk to the news media without permission from the public information department or a supervisor.

That's why it's been hard to get details about why three nurse midwives recently resigned from a CHS-owned practice, Pineville Gynecological & Obstetrical Associates. When they left, the midwives also signed confidentiality agreements that prevent them from talking.

But their patients are under no such prohibitions.

Many have called or e-mailed to express frustration over learning about the loss of valued health-care providers through an article in the Nov. 4 Observer.

Christine Strothers, a childbirth educator, lactation consultant and patient of the Pineville midwives for 12 years, has cancelled an appointment rescheduled with the remaining midwife.

"About everybody I know that knows what's going on is intending to leave," she said.

What is going on? It depends on who's talking.

With the midwives muffled, I've heard their side from Marsha Kelly, a retired midwife who stays in touch with her former colleagues. Kelly said Jan Smith, Karen Helms and Julia James resigned because hospital administrators wanted them to spend less time with patients. They were asked to follow the same schedule as the group's nine physicians -- 15 minutes for a new pregnant patient instead of 30; five or 10 minutes for a follow-up visit instead of 15 -- and were pressured not to stay with patients during hours of labor, Kelly said.

To the contrary, hospital executive Fred Rice has denied that midwives are being told how long they can spend with patients or that they should stop staying with patients during labor.

"It's a shame patients have to hear about it this way," said Jennifer Ducharme, who learned the news from a friend who read it in the paper.

"I told them I'd be calling to request my records be transferred, but I don't know where to go right now."

Ducharme said Kelly delivered her first baby and two of the other midwives took turns staying with her during nine hours of labor with another child. "You just don't find a doctor doing that," she said.

Several days after she spoke to me, Ducharme and other patients received letters from the Pineville practice referring to "announced changes within our midwife staff." But the letters didn't say that three midwives had left, only that the group would "continue to offer midwifery care."

Hospital spokesman Scott White said a task force will "look at the whole midwifery thing. We're dedicated to that. But we're not sure who we'll hire yet."

In addition to the letters, some midwifery patients who are currently pregnant got bouquets of flowers delivered to their homes. White said the public hospital spent about $500 on the flowers as a "good will gesture."

Sarah Morgan, whose second child is due in February, said she didn't get the flowers, but it wouldn't matter because her midwife, Helms, is no longer there.

"I will not stay with that practice, flowers or no flowers."

Karen

Garloch

Karen Garloch: (704) 358-5078; kgarloch@charlotteobserver.com.
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