Alabama top stories in brief
- Alabama Power has withdrawn its application to construct a hydropower storage facility on Chandler Mountain. The original plan was met with stiff opposition by the residents in the neighboring communities. The plan would have created a new lake on top of the mountain and forced residents in the area to relocate, many of whom have lived in the area for generations. The announcement that the plan would no longer go forward was met with celebration by locals.
- Sen. Tim Melson, R-Florence, who suffered a cardiac event in late July while visiting South Korea, has now returned to Alabama. In her most recent Facebook post about her father’s condition, Ellie Melson praised the kindness of the team of medical professionals that cared for him in South Korea.
- A judge has once again temporarily blocked the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission from issuing licenses. The AMCC recently went through the process of re-selecting who would be awarded licenses after they voluntarily halted the process to re-examine the system they’d used to evaluate applications. Montgomery Circuit Judge James Anderson has blocked the issuing of licenses while he hears a complaint from Alabama Always, which claims that the commission violated the Open Meetings Act when they met behind closed doors while deliberating their selections.
- Former Alabama Department of Corrections officer Devlon Williams was convicted for deprivation of rights under color of law, falsification of records and obstruction by a federal jury last Thursday. In 2018, Williams assaulted an incarcerated individual at Staton Correctional Facility. He then attempted to cover up the assault with the help of Larry Managan, another former corrections officer, who pleaded guilty to obstruction.
ADPH releases new rules for birthing centers
Last Thursday, the Alabama Department of Public Health approved new rules for birthing centers that would require them to have oversight by a physician or medical director and to be within 30 minutes of a hospital that offers OB-GYN services.
Previous rules updated last year didn’t address professional midwives, something that Dr. Scott Harris, Alabama’s state health officer, described as an oversight.
According to the American Association of Birth Centers, birthing centers typically operate independently from hospitals. They employ licensed midwives and are “guided by principles of prevention, sensitivity, safety, appropriate medical intervention and cost-effectiveness.”
On Aug. 8, the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama filed a lawsuit against ADPH on behalf of the owners of three birth centers. The owners said that the state has imposed a “de facto ban” on them by forcing them to have hospital licenses, which they say have been made impossible to obtain.
As of Friday, ADPH has made no comments regarding the lawsuit.
According to Dr. Heather Skanes, the founder of the Birmingham-based birthing center Oasis Women’s Health, ADPH contacted her less than a year after the opening of the center about the hospital license requirement.
“The department then refused all of our requests either to apply for the license or to demonstrate the safety and necessity of our services in other ways, leaving me no option but to shut the center’s doors,” Skanes said.
The lawsuit filed by the ACLU claims that the ADPH does not have the authority to require birth centers to obtain hospital licenses, because they are not hospitals under Alabama law.
Alabama has some of the highest mortality rates when it comes to infants and mothers. Skanes and the owners of the other two birth centers said part of the reason for opening their centers was to help improve those rates.
The restriction that birth centers must be near an OB-GYN limits where they can be constructed. According to a report from the March of Dimes, most counties in Alabama have no access or limited access to maternity care, a fact alluded to often by supporters of birthing centers as a reason to expand access to them in rural counties.
Our articles you might have missed
- Last week’s Roundup covered the recent controversy regarding Sen. Tommy Tubberville’s Florida residence.
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