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Madeleine Wisner dreamed of making community midwife services available to all expecting parents regardless of their income when she opened Welcome Home Community Birth Center in south Sacramento.
But 451 births and five years later, Wisner is packing up her family and moving from California to New Zealand, where government policies are far more favorable to midwifery. She closed her birth center in October.
Wisner was the only licensed community midwife who took Medi-Cal patients in the greater Sacramento region, but she’s leaving, she said, because it was impossible to sustain the birth center. Insurance refused to pay two out of every three claims she submitted for services including prenatal visits, labor and delivery, at-home postpartum check ups, and lactation consultations, Wisner said.
“The entire system is not made for us,” Wisner said. “I look at Medi-Cal as the standard of care, and midwives should be part of the standard of care.”