State settles in negligent midwives' case; father of disabled boy outraged

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For more than two years, Dylan Malone waited for the state to take action against two midwives at an Everett clinic where his son, Ian, was born with devastating neurological damage.

Ian's plight was in the national spotlight last year when Vice President Al Gore, campaigning for the presidency, made a health-insurance company's refusal to pay for Ian's care a symbol of the need for health-care reform.

The state recently reached a settlement with the midwives, Darlene Curtis and Janine Walker, of Cascade Midwives & Birth Center.

Because they were found to be negligent in Ian Malone's birth, as well as in the monitoring of another mother with high blood pressure, whose baby was stillborn, the two will be on probation for two years.

But instead of revoking the midwives' licenses, or requiring that they be supervised during deliveries as Malone had hoped, the state fined the midwives $3,000 and required them to hire outside experts to review and monitor the clinic's practices and procedures.

"It's outrageous," Malone said yesterday. "No matter what they say, most of what the Department of Health has required is paperwork stuff. ... The public is not safe. You could easily get another Ian, or a baby who died."

Both the state and the midwives' lawyer, Donna Moniz, argue that the settlement is much more than a slap on the wrist.

"These are some strict sanctions," said Paula Meyer, an executive director with the state Department of Health, which is responsible for licensing and disciplining midwives and other health professionals.

Meyer said if the state revoked the midwives' licenses, it would lose the ability to monitor and improve the practice. The order also requires them to take a class in resuscitation of infants.

Moniz said Curtis and Walker received harsh sanctions compared to the clinic's consultant, a board-certified obstetrician who made all the "key decisions" in the case.

The physician, Dr. Roger Andersen, did not admit any of the allegations and was not officially sanctioned, but agreed earlier this year to an "informal disposition" barring him from accepting referrals from midwives or prescribing a certain labor-inducing drug for five years. The drug, Cytotec, is an issue in Ian's birth.

Andersen prescribed and gave Christine Malone the drug, Moniz said. "He was the person in the better position to know the risks of the drug, the possible dangers, the need for monitoring ... and he gave it to her," she said.

Andersen could not be reached for comment. Telephone numbers for his former clinics in West Seattle, Bellevue and North Seattle have been disconnected.

About a year ago, the midwives settled a civil lawsuit with the Malones, releasing about $2 million in insurance money. Most of that, said Dylan Malone, went to Aetna, the insurance company now paying for Ian's care. Most of the rest went to lawyers, with the remainder in a trust fund for Ian's care should the family lose insurance coverage.

A medical-malpractice lawsuit still is pending against Andersen in Snohomish County Superior Court.

Ian needs 16 hours a day of nursing support, said his father. He can't suck or swallow or hold his head up, and he takes a couple of dozen doses of medicine every day to help quell the seizures that threaten his life.

"It's hard to know how much is going on neurologically, but it's pretty bad," said Malone. "It's grim."

Malone said he knows that some people, including Moniz, argue that it's hard to tell whether Ian was damaged at birth or whether he already had a problem. But in his heart, Malone said, it is clear to him that his son was damaged at birth.

When he learned about the settlement, he demanded a meeting with state officials.

He got his meeting Tuesday — attended by Mary Selecky, head of the Health Department, and representatives of other state agencies. But he got no satisfaction, he said.

The state says Walker and Curtis — only Curtis currently is practicing — would receive plenty of monitoring. But the matter of the Malones' case is done.

"We've reached an agreement with them, all parties have signed, and it's a legal settlement at this point," said Tim Church, spokesman for the Health Department. "That's all we can do."

Carol M. Ostrom can be reached at 206-464-2249 or costrom@seattletimes.com.