The History of Obstetrical Care in Humboldt County

By now I am sure most in our community have heard the California attorney general is suing St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka. The lawsuit stems from a case earlier this year in which a woman who was miscarrying a twin pregnancy at 15 weeks was denied care at the hospital. The reason for the denial was because the staff was still able to detect a heartbeat from one of the fetuses.

Many people in our community are unaware of the strict Catholic doctrines that effect patient care at St. Joseph, specifically the care of women. If a physician or other medical professional wants to be on staff, they are asked not to promote any contraceptive care, in other words no birth control. Elective sterilizations are not allowed. That means no vasectomies and no tubal ligations. A tubal ligation is now allowed at the time of an elective cesarean section, but that is a recent policy change.

When I arrived in Eureka in early 1989 to practice obstetrics and gynecology with Dr. Loring and Dr. Weiderman, there were two hospitals in Eureka, General Hospital and St. Joseph.

All babies were delivered at General Hospital, and we also did all our gynecologic surgeries there. Not all pregnancies are without complications, and sometimes they need to be terminated either for the life of the mother or because of lethal fetal abnormalities. The nuns who ran St. Joseph Hospital at that time preferred not to be involved in the care of pregnant moms to avoid these kinds of uncomfortable decisions.

As the years passed, the nuns disappeared from St. Joseph Hospital and the administration became more “corporate.” HMOs arrived in the early 2000s, and St. Joseph decided that it needed to provide all types of patient care, including obstetrical care. In 2001, St. Joe’s bought General hospital, closing it the following year.

That was the beginning of a trend toward more limited reproductive care for women in our community. Soon after General Hospital closed, I decided to move my practice to Arcata to work at Mad River Community Hospital. Unfortunately, I soon had to stop delivering babies because of changes in my own health. When I moved my practice back to Eureka, I started doing gynecologic surgeries at St. Joseph Hospital. Early on, the OB-GYN providers in Eureka were told that we would not be limited in our care of women. This was true for only a short time. Eventually we were not allowed to do tubal ligations or promote contraceptive care. We began to experience increased scrutiny over the care we were providing our patients. I do not think it is a coincidence that several obstetricians left Humboldt County after this.

Fortunately, Mad River Community Hospital did not question our women’s medical care, and I moved my practice back to Arcata and gave up working at St. Joseph. Unfortunately, the closure of the obstetrics unit at Mad River hospital at the end of this month is not good for women in Humboldt County. Now the only hospital offering this care is a Catholic hospital.

I do not think there is any question that it has been hard to recruit new OB-GYN providers to Eureka. There used to be between six to eight of us in Eureka alone. Now, there is one, and he is more than 70 years old.

I recently retired from active medical practice, fortunate to have practiced obstetrics and gynecology for 35 years in Humboldt County. I can now speak freely without repercussions. Providence, which now owns St. Joseph and Redwood Memorial Hospitals, is a very large corporate Catholic entity. Women’s access to the care they deserve and expect will suffer because of the limits imposed by this corporation. We are lucky to have many wonderful medical providers in our region. Help them do what they were trained to do without administrators imposing unreasonable restrictions on what care they provide.

Before moving to Eureka in 1989, Dr. Kim S. Ervin was an officer and OB-GYN physician in the United States Air Force. She served as a physician in the Air Force for eight years. She graduated from Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1981 and lives in Eureka with her husband Tony Curtis.