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Christine Fields, 30, barely got to spend time with the child who she delivered into this world. She gave birth at Woodhull Hospital in November 2023 where she died hours after giving birth via c-section. According to a New York Times article, investigators from the New York Department of Health have determined that errors made by hospital employees during the birthing procedure are directly responsible for Fields’ death. Fields was in labor when the staff noticed that the baby’s heart rate had dropped significantly and believed that a C-section was the best course of action to save the child’s life. The surgical staff are said to have failed to inform others of a complication described as a “uterine arterial injury,” which led to blood pooling in Fields’ extremities instead of pumping to her heart.
The investigators’ findings were so egregious regarding the health and safety violations that were being committed at Woodhull that they required some staff to get additional training and for the hospital to revamp its protocols for the labor wing to remain open and operating.
According to the New York Daily News , the family has filed a $42 million lawsuit against the hospital, and they are speaking out about their grief and desire for accountability.
“We were looking forward to a wedding this year,” said Jose Perez, Fields’ fiancé. “But she ended up pregnant and we put it on hold.”
The family’s lawyer, Sanford Rubinstein, noted that this child was the third for Perez and Fields saying, “Three children, ages 3, 5 and a newborn infant, will now be raised without a mother.” Deneen Witherspoon, Christine’s mother, expressed a similar sentiment, “My daughter was healthy. She was my heart. Now I have to help raise three kids that don’t have a mother.”
This is the second woman to die at the hands of the inept Woodhull Hospital staff. In July 2020, a 26-year-old woman named Sha-Asia Semple died as a result of a reckless epidural that penetrated too deeply into her back and was subsequently administered a full dose of anesthesia in addition to having an oxygen tube placed incorrectly.
We hope this family gets enough money to shut this place down for good. The Black maternal health crisis in America is real, and people need to be louder about the lack of care that our women are receiving from medical “professionals.”
