Support A Sister Midwife's Fight for Justice

I am starting this fund raiser for a dear and beloved midwifery sister. I have known her for close to 15 years and have attended births with her in that time. She is an amazing woman who takes her midwifery calling very seriously. Several years ago, she was attending a birth with another midwife, acting as a birth assistant only. The other midwife was the primary care provider; the midwife that the birthing family hired. It is not an uncommon practice among midwives to assist each other at our births. It is always safest to have 2 or more birth professionals in attendance.

During that birth, things went off course as they can do. When an out of hospital birth presents with circumstances that dictate a hospital transfer is warranted, midwives make the necessary calls to facilitate a safe transfer of care to the hospital. That is exactly what happened. My friend and the primary midwife acted promptly and diligently and were always operating within their scope of care. They transferred to the hospital in a timely manner and gave informed decision-making information to the parents. Unfortunately, when a birth doesn’t go according to the plan of the parents, they often need someone to blame. Many times, hospital staff will exacerbate the parents’ feelings and antagonize the complaint process.

The accusations of negligence and malpractice against my friend’s midwifery license are entirely false. She is innocent. Unfortunately, midwifery laws force midwives to prove their innocence instead of being innocent until proven guilty. I myself have had 2 complaints filed against my license and had to pay many thousands of dollars to prove that I was innocent. Once a midwife has been proven innocent, she is left with an enormous legal bill and absolutely no recourse toward the false accusers. It is a terribly broken system.

The impact of these false accusations has been devastating. Because the complaint was filed with the WA State Dept of Health, her malpractice insurance will not cover the extravagant financial costs to fight this. Insurance reimbursement for her midwifery care is being threatened as well. REMEMBER, there hasn’t been a verdict! She hasn’t even begun to start the arduous journey of proving herself innocent and already WA State is cutting her off of all financial means. Her legal team is stating that it could cost her upwards of $60,000!!

If you are a midwife, if you have a heart for midwifery, if you know and love a midwife or if you are just tired of tyrannical overreach by governing bodies, would you please consider making a donation to this cause? If we don’t stand together and fight, we will quickly lose our rights to care for families wishing to birth anywhere other than a hospital.