Labour of Love lawyers off to court

LAWYERS FOR the Labour of Love birth centre are to go to court today to retrieve files, they said were illegally seized by the police who accompanied Ministry of Health officials to shut down the centre on Friday.

This was confirmed yesterday by Shari Daniels, head of the institution.

In a release on the matter, the centre likened the seizure of their files by the police to "World War II's Nazi Germany" behaviour.

"They wouldn't allow us to make a phone call out of here. We were in prison. I couldn't use my own bathroom. One woman, she was having some spotting and we were waiting on an ultrasound and they took her out of here in a wheel chair," she said.

But, Dr. Peter Figueroa, Chief Medical Officer in the Ministry of Health, dismissed the accusation yesterday, saying that while he had not been present, he would be surprised if that had happened.

Labour of Love's lawyers, Nunes Scholefield DeLeon and Company has written to Dr. Figueroa, threatening legal action if the seized property is not returned. Dr. Figueroa told The Gleaner that the files would not be returned because, as the facility was closed, the health ministry was mandated to keep the files confidential and make alternative arrangements for expectant mothers and those still in need of ante-natal care.

Alan Huber, managing director of Labour of Love, which was given a licence last May, reiterated yesterday that the seizure had been made without a warrant, court order or any other legal authority. He said that it would make foreign investors think twice about investing locally, if documents can be seized without legal authority and later withheld from the organisation so it could not defend itself.

During yesterday's rally to demand that women be given a choice and that the centre be reopened, Miss Daniels defended the organisation against the breaches outlined by Dr. Figueroa. She said that one reason for the closure could be the popularity of the centre.

"The other part of it is that it is easy to take statistics and bend them any way you want," she said.

Regarding the guideline on women over 30 years having their first baby, she said: "We want women to wait till they are older and have money and are settled down. They are not by world standards at high risk. This is silliness!" The same, she said, applied to persons who have had multiple births: "Don't you have the right to choose where you want to have your baby?"

She defended the centre against the ministry's claim that the birth centre had sent 71 of the 137 emergency obstetric referrals to Victoria Jubilee.

"A birth centre is expected to have a 10 to 15 per cent birth transfer rate, either in early labour delivery or post partum. If when you're in labour we realise that something is not going right, we realise that they need to move to a facility that can do the caesarean or can do a different type of birth than we do. When we don't, we can get into trouble and they are making it seem as if we did something wrong in transferring them instead of something right," she asserted.

Regarding the 35 women who had ended up having caesareans after being transferred, she said that was a good rate as it represented 35 out of 700 women, compared to some local and overseas hospitals which run between 25 and 35 per 100.

Turning to the reported 3 babies per 1000 dying, 2 of congenital defects after being born at the centre, she said that Jamaica had had over 20 babies dying per 1000. "Three per thousand is some of the best stats in the world."

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