The future of midwives who once delivered babies at West Suburban Medical Center is still uncertain as community members fight to reinstate their services.
West Siders, public officials and staff working at West Suburban Medical Center held a press conference at the hospital Jan. 6 to continue speaking out against the loss of midwives and family medicine doctors’ birthing privileges, which were repealed last month. These medical professionals are a part of the PCC Community Wellness Center, which West Suburban contracts for services.
Many locals say this move reveals the stark truth about birthing inequity on the West Side of Chicago, since PCC’s labor and delivery services offered comprehensive birth plans for patients living there.
“This is more than a policy failure – it’s a blatant attack on the health and dignity of women in our communities,” said 1st District Cook County Commissioner Tara Stamps in a statement announcing the press conference. “When community hospitals end 30-year partnerships with anchor organizations, like PCC Wellness Community Center, they send a dangerous message: that the lives of women, particularly Black women, do not matter. We will not stand by as vital resources are stripped away from our families and neighborhoods.”
“This is more than just a breach of care. It is a betrayal of this community,” said Christina Waters, Oak Park’s clerk who delivered her three children with the help of PCC family physicians and midwives at West Suburban, at the press conference. “Expectant mothers now face increased risks of complications due to this unnecessary disruption, all while leadership at West Suburban remains silent about the true reasons behind this decision.”
West Suburban CEO Manoj Prasad told PCC midwives and family medicine doctors in November that they would no longer have birthing privileges because of issues related to liability insurance. Dec. 6 was the last day they delivered babies at the hospital.
But last month, Prasad said PCC midwives could still deliver babies at West Suburban under the supervision of OB/GYNs – instead of with PCC physicians as before. Prasad said this was an offer he verbally explained to PCC’s chief medical officer Paul Luning in November, but Luning declined it.
Luning said this was not offered to him, in writing or orally, that Prasad told him PCC providers could no longer deliver at West Suburban, period.
“He made it clear that family doctors and midwives would not be able to deliver at West Suburban at all,” Luning said. “I did not hear anything at all about him changing his mind and allowing midwives to deliver again until we met with a group of politicians” in early December.
A letter obtained by Growing Community Media – the parent company of Wednesday Journal and Austin Weekly News – that Prasad wrote to Luning in November reads, “Labor and delivery privileges may be exercised only by OB/GYN residency trained physicians.” Prasad added, “This has become standard in our community and is in the interest of quality patient care.”
But Luning said there are several hospitals that allow other providers to deliver babies, not just OB/GYNs.
“Any language that he has put out there about how this reflects the culture of Chicago and the legal climate, that is simply not true,” Annette Payot, director of midwifery for the PCC Community Wellness Center, previously told GCM about Prasad.
“For him to say that’s not the standard care for midwives is crazy, and family docs are delivering at lots of different hospitals in Chicago,” Luning said. He added that five Chicagoland hospitals have reached out to PCC midwives and family medicine physicians to express their astonishment at West Suburban revoking their birthing privileges, offering for them to come deliver at their hospitals instead.
At West Suburban, births that were once assisted by two attending physicians, a midwife and resident doctors are now administered by just an OB/GYN – either a PCC OB/GYN or one that’s a part of a hospitalist group Prasad hired last summer – and resident doctors. But Luning said that PCC providers are against the idea of midwives returning to the current state of the hospital’s labor and delivery unit.
“We object to the idea of midwives being supervised, working underneath an obstetrician,” Luning said. “We believe that midwives are well-trained in providing obstetrical care and should function as partners with consultation, but [Prasad’s] making it clear that the midwives would be essentially doing the scut work.”
Luning added that it is not clear how the logistics of OB/GYNs supervising midwives or the billing would work. And he said the new collaboration wouldn’t have the same continuity of care that patients received when PCC midwives and family physicians worked together to deliver babies.
“We’re all part of the same outpatient prenatal care group,” he said of PCC providers. “We do the postpartum care. It’s completely integrated, and we work in concert together,” rather than an OB/GYN telling them what to do.
PCC providers have asked to see a copy of the insurance policy that recommends they shouldn’t be allowed to deliver babies at West Suburban. Prasad provided them with one dated Oct. 30, but the name of the insurer was redacted. Luning said the insurance policy suggestion was especially confusing, since PCC providers have their own malpractice insurance.
“We’ve been doing this for 33 years. Why have we not heard about this until this man bought the hospital and took complete control?” Luning asks. “We don’t have a lot of confidence in the words that he says out loud, and so it’s very hard for me to have any feeling that the hospital is a safe place for our patients to deliver.”
“Health care is not a privilege; it is a right. This community deserves better than disinvestment, neglect, and silence,” Waters said at the press conference. “We demand the reinstatement of midwifery and family medicine services, investment in staffing and facilities, and – most importantly – transparency from those in charge.”
