The Rules vs Our Records
Oh What a Tangled Web They Weave
UPDATE: Board of Midwifery Disciplinary Actions are back A-Z, current total 49.
September, 2022
First, before showing the extraordinary Rule violations committed by RBC CPM-LDM midwives Woodard Ervin, et al., here’s what we know about Amirah’s placenta and umbilical cord—
RBC midwives’ destroyed Amirah’s placental and cord evidence quickly. No one at the hospital ever mentioned or asked about them or told us that these organs are key forensics. We still don’t know exactly what they do with umbilical cords, but this is what they do with placentas:
Untested, the capsules we were given could be contaminated with GBS and meconium. The thought of taking them after Amirah’s death, even if they weren’t toxic, just didn’t feel right or good. Never took a single one. Never even opened the jar until April, 2023, and discovered a piece of dried up umbilical cord tucked inside. Not cool.
If we’d known anything about pieces of umbilical cord tucked in some mothers’ capsule jars (no info ever given), it would have been sent with Amirah for autopsy. Another stab to our hearts.
Early-on in the month we found a folder dated 9/01/22, within Rachael’s RBC online midwife portal. Inside the folder is a file called “RHS Hermine Notes”, circled in red below.
So it seems that “Hermine Notes” is the ‘homework’ that Willa said she was going to have the midwives do when she was at the hospital that night. The file is a compilation of individual midwife narratives of what happened that day. There are some accuracies, most dabbed in lies, distortions and contradictions, in rough draft form.
Apparently RBC midwives were planning to provide these “Hermine Notes” to Hermine Hayes-Klein (Law), in the event of a civil suit filing.
Blaming EMTs, parents, baby & hospital are standard go-to’s for these types of charlatans (nationwide), and there’s a lot of EMT-blame in these “Hermine Notes”.
Obviously we didn’t think she meant for us to see this and uploaded it into Rachael’s portal records in error. But when she updated it with a little editing on 1/10/23, and then republished it in its same spot, we knew then that she wanted us to have it. Thanks, Willa!
Ugh… that disgusting chant!
NO, HEALTHY BABIES DO NOT ‘JUST DIE’ FOR NO REASON!
Repeating a lie will never make it true.
The truth is that Amirah would be here if it wasn’t for each one of the RBC midwives’ intentional defiance of human rights, decency, and administrative law.
The conversation between Willa and M.H. (previously shown in The Investigation Begins post), comes from the “Hermine Notes”. Remember that in her retelling in that exchange, Willa never denies death and injury to RBC babies. She just downplays (babies die, they die every day at hospitals and nobody ever hears about them); diverts responsibility and blames EMTs; attacks the true stories told by harmed and grieving parents as “rumors”, and accuses them of ignorance and bigotry toward midwives. Wow.
We see how babies die at RBC, get transported to TRMC and pronounced deceased, with the fetal death on hospital stats. Doesn’t sound quite right, does it? That’s dishonest and deceptive data.
Like it or not, reality says that Willa and her ‘hive’ of midwives’ are responsible for their own (in)actions. This isn’t about all midwives; this is about RBC midwives and stopping gross negligence by holding these individuals responsible for their heinous crimes. It’s also about stiffening laws to prevent this from ever happening to another family.
Midwives who accept their limitations, possess integrity, morals and a devotion to doing the right thing at the right time, always thinking of the health and safety of mothers and babies — it is YOU who must stand with us—the Loss Families who’ve been devastated by the evil of many midwives within your organizations. It is these types of rogue charlatans that give all of you rotten reputations, especially when you support them just because they’re midwives. That’s more like a cult than a practice.
And real doctors and nurses who deal with the aftermath of RBC midwives’ repeated negligence —- Please RISE and SPEAK OUT!!!
Now let’s review Amy Hendrickson-Wessner’s ‘homework’:
The chant again: sometimes babies die. Ugh.
Here’s Pratt’s ‘homework’:
Rackey’s:
And Gibson’s:
Mid-month we received 285 pages of RBC records through Hermine Hayes Klein (Hayes Klein Law) — Willa Woodard Ervin’s attorney.
Just to really drive home the criminal negligence of RBC midwives, the Rules below are shown over and over throughout the records, with the Breech Ultrasound appearing FIVE times. It was like the crime was being rubbed in our faces showing how outrageously responsible they are for Amirah’s death.
[Links to official versions of Rule Chapters are at the end of the post.]
Terms: Antepartum (pregnancy), Intrapartum (labor-delivery) & Postpartum (after delivery).
Many EMS protocols were also violated. Everyone that was in a role of caregiver when it really mattered failed disastrously. No one did their job properly or within the confines of their practice standards while at RBC.
Pay particular attention to Sections 5.2 Death in the Field, 6.3 Transfers vs. EMT Scope of Practice, and 7.3 Scene Time: 10 min. or less is the allotted time to perform initial treatment for life threatening injuries and then transport.
Complete Josephine County EMS Protocols HERE
So why did AMR take direction from RBC midwives and withhold informed consent/decision making about Amirah’s condition from Rachael and Dusty?
RBC midwives called EMS for help because the situation required a legit level of medical care. Any level EMT is above CPM-LDM midwives in scope of practice and EMTs should NEVER allow these idiots to deter them from speaking directly to the parents of the minor child and the woman that is either in labor or that has just delivered.
But EMTs are not that level of care; they are the intermediaries whose job it is to get the patient to the ER MD-OBs as fast as they safely can.
While circumstances should have never continued to get worse and worse and ever reach this point, JoCo AMR EMS also spectacularly engaged gross protocol violations. Again, they were on-site 13 minutes before delivery, less than a mile from TRMC!
Why didn’t they talk to Rachael & Dusty and Load & Go?
Dusty was traumatized and in shock. Rachael needed medical attention and received none until she advocated for herself just before almost passing out from blood loss, shock and extreme physical and psychological trauma in the hospital. No transport from RBC for Rachael; no midwife requested an ambulance for her, or transported both Rachael & Dusty themselves, or at the very least accompanied Rachael and Dusty to TRMC. This is what they were supposed to do, but hey, what’s another violation to them at this point?
Absolute and utter abandonment of responsibility, accountability and conscience occurred Sunday, July 24 to Wednesday, July 27, 2022, by everyone involved at Rogue Birth Center.
Freestanding birthing centers must follow Health Evidence Review Commission (HERC) Coverage Guidelines for Planned Out of Hospital Birth. A high-risk client is not allowed to be admitted to the facility to give birth:
More on HERC Guidance HERE and HERE
Below is a “survival guide” for lay midwives first published online in 2004. This is what has been said about it by a physician:
When you tell women that they should accept their babies deaths and just be grateful that they didn’t die, too, you’ve forfeited any claim to being considered a professional of any kind.
When you insist that women should just get over the death of their baby because African women have it worse, you have demonstrated utter contempt both for women (generally women of color) around the world who suffer repeated heartbreak, and contempt for the emotional pain of your own patients.
There’s more, much more, along these lines in From Calling to Courtroom. I suggest this document be invoked at any legislative hearing on licensing [Out-Of-Hospital] midwives or expanding their scope of practice. Nothing can more clearly illustrate the fact that [OOH] homebirth midwives are not professionals, and are unworthy of licensing, than their own words.
In summary, this “survival guide” instructs lay midwives on how to:
1. Prevent prosecution, midwives should lie to their patients.
2. Hire a licensed lawyer.
3. Don’t worry about dead babies; some babies just die.
This horrific passage comes from Geradine Simkins, former President of the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA):
In the mid-1990’s, a well-known midwife was involved with a couple of baby deaths in out-of-hospital settings in Michigan. During one of the investigations the story became a media circus—as many of the midwife and homebirth stories do. The American public loves drama, and live-versions of drama are relished even more than fiction This is the kind of situation that should not be made into a mini-drama. You know, babies die; it’s part of life. And only those entrenched in the bio-technical model think that that it doesn’t, or shouldn’t happen. I have traveled extensively in other countries, mostly developing nations, and people understand this reality elsewhere. I once arrived at the house of a midwife in another country the morning a baby had died in a homebirth. I found that the family had embraced the midwife and was so grateful to her—because the mother did not die. They were understandably sad about the baby, but families expect that a baby might die. A mother dying is considered beyond tragic. It’s a matter of perspective.
- Dr. Amy Tuteur, The Skeptical OB
Links to complete Oregon Rules:
Official version of Board of Direct Entry Rules, Chapter 332
Official version of Birthing Facilities Rules, Chapter 333
Official version of Medical Assistance Rules, Chapter 410
