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controversial midwife gets support from Whistler Parents

Local home-birth advocates believe preventing Gloria Lemay from delivering babies limits their choice.

Local home-birth advocates believe preventing Gloria Lemay from delivering babies limits their choice.

 

Whistler home-birth parents are rallying behind a controversial birth attendant who may face a jail sentence for allegedly practicing midwifery without official sanction.

" Gloria Lemay couldn't be any better at what she does," said Troy Assaly, who hopes Lemay will be able to deliver his second baby this month in his Whistler home.

Lemay delivered Assaly and wife Sheila's son Issac in Whistler two and a half years ago.

"I think it would be very difficult to find anybody who is as interested in what she is doing. She is committed to it. She does not care about money in the slightest and she would put your needs in front of her own any time."

Assaly was one of several Whistler parents who recently rallied outside of Vancouver's B.C. Supreme Courthouse to support Lemay.

She has been found guilty of criminal contempt, for breaking an injunction handed down in 2000, which ordered her to stop practising midwifery. Lemay was due to be sentenced last month, but the sentencing was delayed until May 16 after Lemay's lawyer argued for a new trial on technical grounds.

While she awaits sentencing she has been ordered by the court not to partake in any "birthing process" or even be in the presence of a pregnant woman.

The contempt charges stem from Lemay's refusal to register with the College of Midwives, legislated into existence in 1998, along with her continued presence at home-births.

The College sets standards and regulates the profession, which is now funded as part of the medical system. To practice midwifery in B.C. you must either have a bachelor of midwifery or a bachelor of health sciences in midwifery. Both are four-year degrees.

Lemay has neither. But she has delivered over 1,000 babies since she gave up work as a stockbroker in 1976 after an epiphany during her own home-birth.

If she wrote the College exams and passed she would be allowed to practice midwifery as long as she followed the rules.

Because of this refusal to register she breaks the law every time she acts as a midwife. Assaly believes Lemay's refusal to conform to College rules is rooted in her belief that the institution has moved too far from the traditions of midwifery.

" The college philosophy on birth is more similar to a doctors than it is to the original midwife, home-birth ideal," he said.

Lemay, said Assaly, firmly believes in doing what the parents wants. If that is a home-birth, great . But if parents want to go to a hospital that is fine too.

Assaly , a business owner, university graduate and outdoor enthusiast spent many hours along with his wife investigating home births and Lemay. Both felt Lemay was exactly what they were looking for and was a safe choice.

Lemay takes a hands-off approach, believing that inducing a baby is rarely necessary and most arrive when they are ready.

The College of Midwives believes Lemay's practices are dangerous. They point to numerous complaints they have received and the fact that she has twice faced legal questions about a birth, once at an inquest and once in court. According to Jane Kilthei, College registrar, Lemay is taking unacceptable risks with public safety. "It appears that she has such a strong belief in everything being normal that she doesn't appear to recognize when things are deviating from their normal course," said Kilthei. "There is a long history of her taking babies and women to hospital very late in the game. "Of course, somewhere around 85 per cent of births are going to be normal. A cab driver could do fine.

"But we have to have people who have appropriate training because if the situation does deviate from the normal they need to respond appropriately and she has quite a long history of not responding appropriately to those situations."

Assaly thinks the College's fears are ludicrous.

" The claims that the college is making about her being a risk or a menace to public safety are completely unfounded," he said.

"There is no real criminal style evidence."

During Lemay's contempt trial it was revealed that the College went so far as to hire private investigators to gather evidence. The investigators attended midwifery classes Lemay was hosting and accompanied her to births when invited.

They testified that Lemay performed acts reserved only for midwives and therefore broke the law. Those acts include performing internal vaginal exams of woman during pregnancy and deliveries, managing spontaneous vaginal deliveries and performing episiotomies and amniotomies during labour.

Under the law Lemay was prohibited, at that time, from practising midwifery. Instead she described herself as an advocate and instructor of home births.

When Whistler's Shelagh Maloney found out that Lemay's assistant at the birth of her second child last year was actually a private investigator hired to collect evidence against a women she had come to trust and believe in she was horrified.

" I couldn’t believe how I felt when I found out about the private investigator," said Maloney.

" Here was someone who I thought was there to support me in the biggest event of my life and I thought she was there for me.

"To find out that they were using the information against Gloria who had helped us. It was terrible. It was brutal.

"I felt so violated that this person had been there."

Maloney felt so betrayed and concerned over the College's actions she took its use of private investigators up with the Privacy Commissioner.

While sympathetic, the privacy commissioner told Maloney that the College had the right to collect evidence this way.

It may have the right to do it, said Maloney, but in her eyes the actions of the College destroyed its credibility as a caring organization which upholds the rights of women.

" This is an organization that is supposed to uphold a women's rights and her choices," said Maloney.

"So are we only allowed to choose as long as we choose them? And if we don’t chose them do they have the right to invade our privacy?

"Whether the Privacy Commissioner says they have the right to do so or not I believe they still don’t have the right to invade our privacy.

"I think it is frightening.

" I don’t think they gave any consideration to my feelings in that process.

"They haven't even apologized to me for it. They don’t care. It is just a horrible feeling."

Registrar Kilthei of the College believes they were compelled to act for safety reasons.

"We got a permanent injunction from the Supreme Court of B.C., which had prohibited her from doing these reserved acts, and then we continued to get reports that she was practicing these things," she said.

"Some of the reports were quite frightening. In order to fulfill the job the legislation has given to us we sent investigators to get the evidence to go back to court so she could be charged with contempt of court.

"What the college has is an overriding duty to the safety of the public and I believe that that couple had been informed that Ms. Lemay was breaking the law. They were also breaking the law by asking her to do reserved acts.

"All I can say is that she was breaking the law. It is the same as any other law. When people knowingly break the law that is one of the risks that they take. The overriding concern about the lives of mothers and babies had to take precedence in this situation."

The College remains concerned that Lemay, whatever the outcome of her sentencing, will continue to act as a birth attendant, and has this warning for parents.

"I would caution them to do their own research," said Kilthei.

If Lemay provides information, confirm it. And parents should consider using a registered midwife and investigating what alternatives are available in the health care system.

"One of the other things that has come out of the investigation is that Ms. Lemay does give her potential clients sometimes some quite erroneous information about what care is available in the health care system," said Kilthei.

Unfortunately, in the Sea to Sky Corridor, little help and support available on the home-birth front.

Parents can sign up with a College midwife, but since registered birth attendants must be within twenty minutes of a hospital to deliver, locals can never have their babies at home. They have to impose on a friend or a relative, or rent a hotel room.

So, many locals have no choice but to use someone like Lemay.

"If you are saying this woman (Lemay) cannot attend births then you are saying our choices is a registered midwife or a hospital," said Maloney, who tried to get a College midwife.

"If you can't get a registered midwife then what do you do?

"I wouldn't have had a choice. And I can totally understand the worry or the concern's of the College but it is frustrating that they don’t understand the other side."

There is a solution, believes Maloney, a health studies graduate of Waterloo University in Ontario. Let a system exist with both registered midwives and unregistered midwives.

It would be up to prospective parents to do their research and learn everything they could about the person they chose to assist them.

"In the end it is about choice," said Maloney. "We should have the right to choose."

The Assaly family chooses Lemay. But she is the one person they can't have.

"We can have any person you want in the world except for Gloria," said Assaly. "She has the experience of a thousand births, and she is our friend, and she is the only person in the world who is not allowed to come to our home birth. "If Sheila's grandmother was a birth attendant, if Sheila's best friend was a midwife, anyone, anyone except for Gloria can attend our birth.

"It doesn't make sense."

But ever optimistic Assaly believes it will all work out and his second baby, due the day Lemay is sentenced, will somehow be brought into the world by Lemay.

"That thought is still out there," said Assaly.

"We have faith that something will work out."

 

Troy started out with an entrepreneurial flare, running several businesses while in high school and for two years after graduation. He then completed a four-year Commerce Degree, majoring in Marketing and Computers, from the University of British Columbia. He has held several management positions since, including Hudson's Bay Co., Sunkist Growers Inc., Blackcomb Mountain, Canadian Snowmobile Adventures, Eagle Tours and, most recently, Accommodation Network.