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An emergency room at St. David’s Round Rock Medical Center did not provide miscarriage care after\u00a0Keierra Lynn Callaway was experiencing heavy bleeding, abdominal pain and lethargy, according to complaints\u00a0Callaway and her attorneys filed.<\/p>\n
Mikala Compton\/American-Statesman<\/p>\n
Attorneys for Keierra Lynn Callaway have filed complaints with the federal and regional offices<\/a> of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services against St. David’s Round Rock\u00a0Medical Center and Baylor Scott & White – Round Rock for the way the two hospitals handled her miscarriage in October.\u00a0<\/p>\n CMS is the federal authority for hospital care and handles patient complaints.\u00a0Callaway’s attorneys from Amplify Legal, a nonprofit based in New Jersey that focuses on reproductive rights, also have filed complaints with the\u00a0Texas Medical Board<\/a> and the Texas Board of Nursing<\/a> about specific providers.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The CMS complaint said that the hospitals violated the federal statute Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act when they “refused Ms. Callaway medical treatment necessary to stabilize her emergency medical condition. Specifically,\u00a0Baylor Scott & White and St. David\u2019s failed to offer procedural or medical treatment to terminate Ms. Callaway\u2019s pregnancy during a dangerous miscarriage.”<\/p>\n Callaway, 40, who lives in Austin, also sought care at St. David’s North Austin Medical Center but left because of a long wait for care.\u00a0<\/p>\n The affidavit to CMS states: “Ms. Callaway\u2019s pain was dismissed, her signs of infection ignored, and she was forced to pass the pregnancy without medical assistance from Texas physicians.”<\/p>\n Both hospital systems cited the independence of their physicians to make medication decisions.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n “Like other hospitals across the state, we have a responsibility to be in compliance with applicable state and federal laws and regulations,” St. David’s HealthCare said in a statement. “It is our practice to support and partner with licensed physicians who use their extensive training and experience to exercise their independent medical judgment to assess patients\u2019 needs and determine the course of treatment within applicable laws and regulations.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Baylor Scott and White Health said in its statement: “Across our health system, care decisions are guided by the clinical judgment of our physicians and care teams, who evaluate each patient\u2019s condition individually and determine appropriate treatment based on medical needs and applicable legal requirements.”<\/p>\n St. David’s Round Rock Medical Center is one of two hospitals named in Keierra Lynn Callaway’s complaint to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Federal law requires hospitals to stabilize pregnant women.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mikala Compton\/American-Statesman<\/p>\n What happened to Callaway<\/p>\n According to Callaway’s affidavits, she was seven weeks pregnant on Oct. 9 when she began to experience spotting. She began to have “significant” abdominal pain. She called her obstetrician, Dr.\u00a0Alyson Garcia, and the office scheduled her to come in the next day. An ultrasound on Oct. 10 did not find a pregnancy in the uterus, but nurse practitioner Alyssa Beaver suggested Callaway could be having an ectopic pregnancy \u2014 one that is in a fallopian tube \u2014 or a miscarriage. Callaway was sent home and told to go to the emergency room if her condition worsened, the affidavits said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The next day, Callaway said her bleeding and pain had increased and she was lethargic. Because\u00a0Callaway’s hormone levels were still considered high, Callaway said the on-call nurse at her doctor’s office told her they could\u00a0not give her a procedure or medication to help her complete the miscarriage. She was again told to go to the emergency room if it got worse, according to the affidavits.\u00a0<\/p>\n After first going to St. David’s North Austin Medical Center where the emergency department was full, Callaway went to Baylor Scott & White in Round Rock. A technician there told her there was an intrauterine pregnancy that showed evidence of being two weeks behind and no longer growing, evidence of a likely miscarriage, which a doctor confirmed. That doctor told Callaway that\u00a0the only option was to go home and pass the pregnancy, Callaway’s complaint said.<\/p>\n Callaway said in her affidavit to the Texas Medical Board that Dr.\u00a0Mollie Shutter\u00a0Kerr “was dismissive, chuckling as she told me I would be just ‘fine.'”\u00a0<\/p>\n Vice President Trenton Vaughan addresses a crowd at the expanded\u00a0Baylor Scott and White Medical Center in Round Rock last year. The hospital has said ‘care decisions are guided by the clinical judgment of our physicians.’<\/p>\n Ricardo B. Brazziell\/American-Statesman<\/p>\n That night, Callaway said she had chills, continuous bleeding and cramping.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The next day, Callaway received lab results from Baylor Scott & White and called the\u00a0nurse line. She said she was told that even though her labs were abnormal “they are not necessarily life or limb threatening to where we have to get you evaluated or have to do immediate treatment.” Callaway said she was told that doing nothing was “standard.”\u00a0<\/p>\n On Oct. 12, Callaway went to St. David’s Round Rock, where she was given pain medications and intravenous fluids. She said she was told by physician assistant Marisol Rodriguez that she was having a miscarriage and had an infection. Callaway said she was told by Rodriguez that she would be sent home with pain medication and antibiotics and that she should follow up with her obstetrician. Callaway said in her affidavit:\u00a0 “I asked why they were not offering me a procedure or medication to terminate my pregnancy, and Ms. Rodriguez said this was not something the ER provided.”<\/p>\n On Oct. 14,\u00a0Callaway was able to see Dr. Garcia in her office. Garcia detected some retained tissue and prescribed Callaway medication to complete the miscarriage as well as stronger antibiotics.<\/p>\n Three months later, Callaway experienced bleeding again, this time on a plane ride to a vacation in Portugal. After she landed, she began soaking through her clothes. Callaway and her husband went to a hospital in Portugal, where doctors discovered she still had retained tissue from the miscarriage that needed to be removed. “For the first time since the ordeal began, I felt safe with a physician,” Callaway said in the affidavit.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Callaway has now been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and resigned from her job, according to the CMS complaint.<\/p>\n Baylor Scott and White Medical Center – Round Rock has expanded its care, including adding a neonatal intensive care unit and more labor and delivery rooms. \u00a0Keierra Lynn Callaway filed a federal complaint against the hospital for what she says was a lack of care during her miscarriage last year.<\/p>\n Ricardo B. Brazziell\/American-Statesman<\/p>\n Doctors have been asking for guidance about what is legally permitted in the case of a miscarriage since 2021<\/a>. That’s when Texas enacted a “heartbeat” law, which states that doctors cannot perform an abortion after a fetal heartbeat exists unless there is documented medical emergency.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022\u00a0Dobb\u00a0decision, which overturned its 1973 Roe\u00a0v. Wade decision, then caused Texas laws to be more restrictive<\/a>. Abortion can only be performed by a licensed physician if there is a life-threatening condition that risks the death or “substantial impairment of a major bodily function” of the mother if the abortion is not performed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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