Danbury childbirth center objects to hospital investigation of midwife
DANBURY — Community members are rallying behind a local childbirth center that claims Nuvance Health revoked the privileges of one of its midwives to deliver babies at Danbury Hospital after a complaint was filed against her.
Danbury Hospital launched an investigation about a month ago after a patient complained about care she received from a midwife at the Connecticut Childbirth & Women’s Center, according to Cathy Parisi, midwife director.
Parisi declined to reveal the nature of the complaint, citing patient privacy concerns, but said the investigation led to the hospital revoking the privileges of one of the center’s midwives.
“This will affect her for the rest of her midwifery career,” Parisi said. “It’s unbelievable.”
Nuvance Health declined to confirm whether it investigated a complaint against the midwife.
“Danbury Hospital is committed to the health
and safety for all of our labor and delivery patients,” Andrea Rynn, spokeswoman for Nuvance Health, said in a statement. “Whether a woman chooses home birth, a childbirth center or a hospital for their delivery, we support and are welcoming of all of our patients. We are advocates for all women to have the safest delivery possible. However, with patient safety as our top priority, we have an obligation to address any care we find concerning including matters with independent, community practitioners.”
The state Department of Public Health, which licenses the center, did not return a request for comment. The Connecticut Childbirth & Women's Center is fully accredited by the Commission for the Accreditation of Birth Centers, according to its website.
The center is privately owned and located across the street from Danbury Hospital. Families may chose to give birth at the center or Danbury Hospital. The facility offers pregnancy and postpartum care, among other services.
In response to the issue, a supporter of the center launched a Change.org petition on Thursday, calling for people to contact Nuvance in protest. The petition, at https://bit.ly/3G3d812, had garnered more than 2,000 signatures by Friday afternoon.
The woman who started the petition said she delivered her healthy baby at the center's birthing tub with one of the midwives.
“My peace of mind came from knowing that I could have my midwife AND that emergency services were just minutes away at Danbury Hospital,” wrote Meg Briglia, of Winsted. “This is a critical point. It is a woman's choice to have the kind of birth that matters the most to her and THIS is what the administrators at Danbury Hospital are missing. They run one of the only hospitals in the state, in the region really, that partners with a midwife practice at this level.”
Parisi said she doesn't understand why the midwife's privileges were revoked, nor does she understand why the hospital decided to have a medical executive committee investigate the patient complaint.
Not only was there “no physical harm to the patient and no outcome altered” by the care the patient received, she said, but the care she was provided took place at the center — not the hospital.
“If anybody should have investigated, it should have been my practice — but it was not investigatable because we reviewed and decided the care was appropriate,” Parisi said.
Affiliated with Nuvance, Parisi said the Connecticut Childbirth & Women's Center has maintained “a good working relationship with Danbury Hospital” over the years.
However, Parisi said she's become concerned the hospital administration may be trying to get rid of midwifery — “especially by a private group such as ours,” she said.
“I think that the administration is much more comfortable with midwives who are employees of the hospital,”
Parisi said. “My guess is that they feel they can control what they do and who they see and whatnot.”
She said she her concern increased after a recent meeting with the hospital's OB/GYN department.
During the meeting, Parisi said she learned
midwives were going to be excluded from an upcoming voluntary audit of the hospital and was told the hospital administration plans to do “a deep dive into the midwifery program.”
“Midwives have put up with this sort of behavior from institutions for 50, 75,
100 years, but it just feels like the hospital administration is out to get us,” she said. “It tears me apart that we're in a place where we may have to say we can't practice under these conditions — and I wonder if that's what they're hoping we're really going to do.”