by Joshua Cook BenSwann.com
Hospitals are losing millions to natural birth centers and want to use government regulation to eliminate their competition. According to an employee of a Fort Mill center, Obstetricians from Rock Hill sent an email to a S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) board member in order to shut down the center.
They succeeded. In September, the license for a Fort Mill birth center was suspended pending an investigation by DHEC.
According to the Charlotte Observer, the center released a statement saying it is appealing the suspension, which stemmed from “a birth with a bad outcome.”
Benswann.com’s Joshua Cook reached out to one of the midwives who works at the center to get more details.
Christine Struther from Carolina Community Maternity Center states, “we been suspended since September 2nd because of two citations. One was thrown out because they were saying that we didn’t have an agreement with EMS which we do. That wasn’t a valid citation. The other one was regarding a policy statement that we changed and got resolved.”
“So the only reason why we are still suspended is this “physician on call” statute that they are enforcing now. They are able to keep us closed. We are appealing this in court now,” said Struthers.
But this reinterpretation of the statute doesn’t effect just the Fort Mill center. DHEC now requires all birth centers throughout the state to be supervised by physicians or be suspended.
“South Carolina has over 80 percent of physicians working for hospitals already and cannot work for a birth center even if they want to,” said Struthers. “DHEC is not giving birth centers time to comply with this new interpretation of the law, and Birth centers are now being told that they have 15 days to comply or they will be shut down.”
Hospital nursery
