Floyd County Medical Center terminates midwives program, eliminating options for mothers in the area
Adison Kapping and her family. Submitted photo.
During her first pregnancy, Adison Kapping experienced issues with her kidneys and bladder that tinged the last eight weeks with fear.
She was always on edge, she said. But her midwife at Floyd County Medical Center, Danielle Wadsworth, helped ease her fears.
“She was awesome to talk to about that stuff, always reminding me that she is a phone call away if I needed her,” Kapping said. “It didn’t feel like I was just going to see a doctor.”
Now, the 23-year-old is expecting her second child, a baby girl. Shortly after her 20-week appointment, she learned she’d no longer have access to the care she had come to rely on. Floyd County Medical Center had ended its midwife program and let go of Wadsworth and the other midwife, Judi Halbach.
“I had an appointment the week before, and nothing was said about it,” Kapping said. “Then the next week I was just scrolling through Facebook, and someone had posted the Floyd County Medical Center fired their midwives. What am I going to do now? I’m 20 weeks through a pregnancy and now you’re telling me I have to figure out a new doctor when it took me a whole pregnancy and a birth to trust the one I have right now?”
Communicating the news
A week passed after reading of the midwives’ termination before Kapping received communication from the hospital.
“It just kind of felt to us that they were trying to save face,” she said. “I don’t think I got a call about my change of care until like a week and a half, two weeks after.”
One of the midwives declined to comment under advisement from her attorney and the other could not be reached for comment. Floyd County Medical Center did not respond to a request for an interview. However, FCMC marketing director Makenzie McNeill said at the hospital’s Board of Trustees Meeting on Aug. 17 that the decision would make recruiting and retaining physicians easier. Because a physician would have to be on call for a delivery by a midwife, hospital leadership felt their resources would be better used in a physician-led model, McNeill said.
McNeill also said at the meeting that the hospital contacted patients with the most immediate appointments at first, and because the notifications could not happen at once, some patients found out about the program ending through social media.
To Kapping, this meant she and other women in the area no longer had access to a spectrum of care options. She now drives 30 minutes for midwifery care in Elma and will have to drive an hour to Cresco to deliver her baby. Her drive to FCMC was 5 minutes.
“We’re all entitled to the care we are seeking,” she said. “We need to give the options back to the women who don’t have the option to drive out of town once a month, or more if there are people who are needing more appointments.”
Fighting for choice
Kapping started a petition for the hospital to reinstate the midwifery program. As of Sept. 2, the petition has 1,937 signatures.
“I don’t think the midwives would even come back after how all this was handled, but I want to get the program reinstated for the mothers who don’t have the options to drive 30 minutes or the people who are limited to the care that this area provides,” Kapping said.
Kapping said Wadsworth and Halbach had developed a reputation in the area for high-quality care. She had heard from a woman who drove from Waterloo for care.
“They have midwives in Waterloo, so to drive here and skip over yours, that just kind of tells you a little bit about how good they were,” Kapping said.
Kapping explained that being a young mom meant she didn’t know what to expect during her first pregnancy. Wadsworth explained everything, went as in-depth as Kapping needed and made sure she didn’t feel rushed during her appointments.
The hospital also sent a letter detailing which doctors the midwives’ former patients could switch to. Some of them were not OB/GYNs. Shortly after the midwifery program ended, the hospital announced one of their doctors who practiced both family medicine and obstetrics resigned from her position, effective Nov. 25 of this year.
“The amount of times I saw comments of like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m due this week and I never got a call that this was happening,’” Kapping said. “I could not imagine.”
Kapping hopes her petition can help FCMC understand the impact the termination of the midwives is having on their community.
“Let the hospital see the decision that they made has a bigger impact than what they think,” Kapping said. “Seeing mothers and community members, even husbands coming together to support these midwives. I’m glad that I did it because I think it also shows the midwives the impact that they made during a really hard time for them as well, because they were let go.”
