Pregnant patients at Madigan’s OB/GYN clinic sent elsewhere due to staffing shortfalls
Madigan Army Medical Center is telling some pregnant women they cannot give birth on base because there are too many patients and not enough staff.
One possible reason: COVID-19 military travel restrictions are keeping service members from changing stations this summer.
In a Facebook Live Town Hall Q&A on July 28, leaders from Joint Base Lewis-McChord took a question from an expectant mom who said multiple pregnant women were being contacted near the end of their pregnancies and told they could no longer give birth at Madigan.
Dr. Melissa Grant, Madigan’s chief of obstetrics and gynecology, said on Facebook Live that the practice was due to a shortage of staffing.
“Out of an abundance of caution and based on when we expect those moms to deliver, we were able to refer some of them out to the network,” Grant said. “We felt that would give moms time to establish care with a new provider.”
According to Col. Louis Stout, Madigan’s chief nursing officer and deputy commander for health readiness, the OB/GYN department has been diverting patients since July 15 to ensure the staff is not overwhelmed.
“The goal is to stay within about five to six active birthing moms at any given time,” Stout said. “We always want to make sure we have a safe staffing model, so, if we see we’re going to exceed that, we refer them to someone within the network.”
On average, 150 to 170 moms give birth every month, but the OB/GYN department only has the staff to support about 130 births monthly right now.
Part of the reason they’re diverting patients is because to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Army’s change of station process.
“Summer is usually when people are moving around the most, but, because of the movement stop put in place, we may have increased the number of pregnant mothers who have stayed here instead of moving to a new station,” Stout said.
Col. Elizabeth Nutter, the chief midwife at Madigan and the ambulatory obstetrics chief, said she talks directly to every mother referred to the network. She explained moms can either choose to find a new in-network provider themselves or Tricare — the health care provider for service members and their families — can recommend someone.
Nutter said they only refer moms who are not at high risk and who are not active-duty service members.
“We have the OB/GYN residency program here at Madigan that focuses on high-risk patients, so we keep those high-risk moms here to make sure we are able to fulfill that training,” Nutter said.
Nutter added that patients are brought back into the Madigan health care system as soon as they’re finished with obstetrical care, and their newborn babies are automatically brought into the pediatric clinic.
“We didn’t want to do this,” Nutter said. “But this is what is safest for them and for our staff.”
Nutter said the department is now setting a limit on the number of new patients it can support. She said it is only taking about 130 new patients, and other moms-to-be will be referred to doctors outside Madigan.
This story was originally published August 13, 2020 at 5:10 AM.
