Beaufort Memorial Hospital cited by feds after woman gave birth in parking lot
Federal regulators cited Beaufort Memorial Hospital for multiple policy violations that led to a woman giving birth unassisted in the campus’ parking lot in March.
A Statement of Deficiencies submitted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services details noncompliance with 1986’s Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which requires hospital staffers to evaluate and treat anyone who arrives with an emergency medical condition.
The report chided the hospital for incomplete EMTALA training that did not include definitions, policy requirements and on-call physician guidelines. It was BMH’s first violation of this type since 2010, according to federal records.
The report says the hospital lacked a staffer in a critical triage position when the woman’s partner rushed into the emergency room around 7:30 a.m. March 11 as she waited in the car. Her partner told staffers her water had broken as they turned into the hospital and she “felt the baby’s head coming out.”
Emergency room personnel told the man to drive to the nearby Birthing Center, according to the report, but no one from the department came to talk to the woman “to evaluate the situation” and determine if the trip was safe for her to make.
Construction on the hospital campus and closures on certain portions of roadways left the couple struggling to find the Birthing Center, the report says. The woman’s partner went into the Surgical Center for help. The woman “delivered a baby boy in the car alone” and without the assistance of staff, the report said. Staffers arrived to find the newborn on her chest.
Surveillance footage from that morning showed a red, “Jeep-like” vehicle pulling up to the ER and rushing inside. In the passenger seat was a woman in “birthing position,” with her feet resting on the dashboard.
The patient care technician on duty at the time later told interviewers there had been no triage registered nurse assigned to the ER lobby, which violates the staffing protocol’s requirement to have always someone in that position on duty. Because the direct route to the Birthing Center was “walled off” by construction, the technician said he told the woman’s partner that it would be faster for him to drive her over.
“I should never have done that,” the technician said in an interview, referring to sending the couple by car to the Birthing Center without going outside to assess the situation. When the man came in asking for help, the technician did not call back to the department’s charge nurse, which is protocol when a triage nurse is not present.
A department manager told interviewers “there was no excuse” for the oversight and that the patient should have been assisted into the ER for examination. The manager confirmed their policy requires patients in all childbirth cases to be transported by hospital staff to the Birthing Center.
Regulators found not all hospital staff had received the same EMTALA training. The report ends with observations of gaps in the hospital’s childbirth policies, such as a lack of a “defined obstetric triage process” based on national standards.
Federal officials approved a plan submitted by Beaufort Memorial to amend the violations detailed in the report, according to reporting from The Post and Courier. The hospital instituted new online training that is required for all staff members and pledged to have a nurse stationed at the emergency room’s reception desk at all times.
Asked to comment on the federal report, a spokesperson for the hospital sent a statement from Russell Baxley, the president and CEO of Beaufort Memorial.
“We take our obligations under federal law very seriously. Patient safety and access to emergency care remain our highest priorities,” Baxley wrote in the statement. “Beaufort Memorial remains committed to those priorities and compliance with law. At this time, the matter is not closed, and no further comment will be made.”
Founded in 1944, Beaufort Memorial Hospital is chartered by the state and governed by a nine-member Board of Trustees appointed by Beaufort County Council. Its plans for expansion include new locations in Bluffton and on Hilton Head Island.
