Hospital in Brooklyn facing maternal health crisis, health officials say

NEW YORK — Brooklyn families are asking for answers from city health officials after their loved ones died during childbirth at the city-run Woodhull Hospital. The health department admits the Brooklyn hospital is facing a maternal health crisis.
Jose Perez, 42, lost the love of his life, Christine Fields, last November after she gave birth to their son, Anuel, at Woodhull Hospital.
“They let my family down. They let a whole bunch of people that loved Christine down,” Perez said.
In tears he told CBS News New York, she was having complications and had to have an emergency C-section. That was the last time he says he saw her alive.
“I see over 50 doctors in the hallway, back and forth in the room. They kicked me out. At 4 in the morning, they just told me sorry,” Perez said.
Since then, he’s been raising his newborn and their daughter, alone.
“It just hurts me to another family’s gonna have to go through what I’m going through,” Perez said.
Friday afternoon, Perez joined another grieving family demanding answers outside the same city-run public hospital after 24-year old Bevorlin Barrios also died after having an emergency C-section in September. The medical examiner has not yet released her cause of death.
“She was fine and in the middle of something, then she’s not fine?” Nelson Ramirez said.
The deaths of both mothers is sounding the alarm about the hospital’s ability to safely provide maternity care and deliver babies.
Woodhull Hospital, according to the city’s health department, is facing an ongoing maternal health crisis. A hospital spokesperson told CBS News New York, “NYC Health + Hospitals provides quality, culturally responsive health care services to address the disparities and race-based health care gaps that historically and disproportionally affect the diverse population of patients we proudly serve.”
City health data shows Black women are nine times as likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth than white women, a racial disparity that these grieving fathers say also has to change.
A hospital spokesperson also said HIPAA prevents the hospital from talking about specific patient cases.