Following is our first letter to all elected representatives with constituents in Lane County. Supporters might also enjoy seeing a letter of support from Sen. Merkley sent on the occasion of the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center's re-opening in 2010 at the Springfield site. Supporters, when you contact your elected representatives, ask their staff members to make sure they see this letter and take the suggested actions (see letter) to #SaveTheNurseMidwiferyBirthCenter.
***********************
May 23, 2019
Re: PeaceHealth Nurse Midwifery Birth
Center
To
Our Elected Officials:
PeaceHealth has announced its
intention to close the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center (NMBC) in Springfield. In light of
your role as an elected official, Lane County Friends
of the Birth Center asks for your help to reverse this plan.
Unchecked, it represents a restriction on reproductive health choices.
The Nurse Midwifery Birth Center has
served our community since the 1970s. It serves women and families from the
Eugene/Springfield area, Salem, Albany, Lebanon, Corvallis, Sweet Home,
Creswell, Cottage Grove, Roseburg, Coos Bay, Reedsport, Grants Pass, Oakridge,
and Pleasant Hill. It is a nationally accredited and designated provider
of evidence-based lactation support for mothers and
babies. The current site was built from generous donor and community gifts only
9 years ago and celebrated the 1000th baby born on site this year. In partnership with PeaceHealth, it was made by
and for the community and needs to remain open, as intended, for future
generations.
There is good reason for the Nurse
Midwifery Birth Center’s longevity. It provides a unique, integrated, and comprehensive model of care including family planning, prenatal, birth
(out of hospital and hospital), pregnancy loss, postpartum, lactation support, a baby clinic for weighing and feeding support,
and well woman care. The United States has the highest maternal mortality
rate of our peer countries and spends more on healthcare
than any other developed nation. The Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) calls for scaling up of the
freestanding, midwifery-led birth center model. This model improves health
outcomes, patient experience, and reduces
costs.
NMBC closure would have a disproportionate impact
on low income and minority women. NMBC midwives do not limit or exclude OHP
Medicaid clients, unlike other local practices. Furthermore, the NMBC has
developed a partnership with the Community Health Centers of Lane County to
serve women receiving this coverage as well as coverage through CAWEM. In its
rush to close, PeaceHealth has failed to account for this critical partnership.
Rather, a decision was made without consulting NMBC staff or this consumer
group. PeaceHealth administrators, who have never visited the NMBC or taken
time to understand its vital role, can do better than this.
Lane County Friends of the Birth
Center is particularly concerned
by what we have learned about the information gathering and decision making
processes used to justify closure. Statistics
cited by PeaceHealth are incorrect. These same statistics are used without
context and mischaracterize demand for and
outcomes associated with NMBC services. Participants (this consumer group and
NMBC staff) who could have offered a corrective were fully cut out of the
process.
Lane County Friends of the Birth
Center asks for your support in the following ways:
●
Visit the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center, as soon as possible. We
would be delighted to assist you in making such a visit possible. Communicate with us via lanecofbc@gmail.com.
●
Meet with PeaceHealth leadership, here and at the system
level in Vancouver, to reiterate the importance and value the Nurse Midwifery
Birth Center holds in this community.
●
Speak with
administrators at Lane County Health and Human Services and at Trillium
Community Health Plan. Both of these organizations are responsible for ensuring
a high standard of maternity care for significant numbers of women in our
community. We believe an insufficient understanding of and appreciation for
midwifery-led birth center care currently exists and makes impossible the
recognition of the avoidable risks involved with closing the NMBC and replacing
it with what we anticipate will be physician managed midwifery care. We would be happy to
assist you with a list of recommended contacts. We would like to be included in
meetings you attend.
Following are specific topics Lane County Friends
of the Birth Center would appreciate elected officials raising and inquiring
about:
● PeaceHealth has
told us that some insurance plans do not have a reimbursement code for a birth
center birth. As a result, PeaceHealth doesn't bother trying to get reimbursed
for those births and just writes it off.
● We understand
that Trillium plans to start reimbursing according to risk level. Inevitably,
low risk pregnancies will be treated as higher risk with the attendant
(cascading) interventions. This is an
upside-down approach with very real ethical implications. Additionally, we do
not know if Trillium has or will have a birth center-specific birth delivery
reimbursement code.
We are committed to inclusion and
transparency with the community. We actively communicate using the social media channels
below. On our blog, visitors have access to media coverage garnered thus far, a
petition with nearly 7,000 signatures, and other valuable information for
understanding why we advocate for the midwifery-led birth center care at the
Nurse Midwifery Birth Center.
Hash tag: #SaveTheNurseMidwiferyBirthCenter
Included with this letter is a Guest Viewpoint
that goes into further detail about the importance of the NMBC,
published in The Register-Guard last Sunday.
Thank you for your time and consideration. Please let us know how we can
anticipate working with you.
Sincerely,
Lynn Kane, PhD
Co-Chair, Lane County Friends of the Birth Center
Commissioner, Commission for the Accreditation of Birth Centers
Mother of two birth center babies (born
2010, 2012)
Ann Carney Nelson
Co-Chair, Lane County Friends of the
Birth Center
COO, Inpria Corporation
Mother of two birth center babies (born
2012, 2015)
Encl: Kane
and Carney Nelson: Keep commitment to Birth Center Families, Guest Viewpoint in
The
Register-Guard
Board Members:
Lynn Kane, PhD
Co-Chair, Lane County Friends of the Birth Center
Commissioner, Commission for the Accreditation of
Birth Centers
Mother of two birth center babies (born
2010, 2012)
Ann Carney Nelson
Co-Chair, Lane County Friends of the
Birth Center
COO, Inpria Corporation
Mother of two birth center babies (born
2012, 2015)
Katharine Gallagher, MPP
Founding member & Former Co-Chair, Lane County Friends of the
Birth Center
Commissioner
(Former), Commission for the Accreditation of Birth Centers
Centro Latino Americano, Social Services
Mother of two babies, one a birth center VBAC baby (born 2005,
2007)
Matt Huston
Employee Benefits Consultant - Hagan
Hamilton
Father of two birth center babies (born 2011 and 2016)
Heather LeCompte, MA in
Counseling
Mother of one birth center baby (born
2015)
Jennifer Noyce, PhD
Mother of two birth center babies (born
2012, 2014)
Teresa Roark, MPH
Mother of one birth center baby (born
2018)
Communications and Policy Analyst--Planning and Development Department,
City of Eugene
Board of Directors, Sexual Assault Support Services
Mother of two birth center babies (born
2014, 2016)
Rabbi Jacob Siegel
Father of two birth center babies (born
2017, due 2019)
Emeritus Board
Katharine Gallagher
Eleanor Vandegrift
Karen Guillemin
Kathy Lynn
Renee Bailey
Anna Chorlton
Maria Blum
Jennifer Rinner
Sara Starlin
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