Complaints About UHS Care Prompt Harvard Investigation

A "consistent pattern" of complaints about the quality of gynecological and obstetric care at University Health Services (UHS) has prompted a formal grievance against two Harvard practitioners and an official investigation of UHS practices, it was learned yesterday.

Complaints have included the case of a woman who allegedly "came close to dying" because of an undiagnosed infection, another who allegedly became pregnant after a "clearly slipping" intrauterine contraceptive device (IUD) was not corrected, and charges that the two UHS doctors performed Cesarian sections with insufficient cause, according to an official on the committee that filed the formal grievance.

The two practitioners charged in the grievance, who work at the Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) in Boston, handle all but the most routine gynecological problems for all women enrolled in the Harvard University Group Health Plan, UHS Director Warren E.C. Wacker said yesterday.

The two doctors handle about 6000 visits each year from individuals including Harvard employees, their wives, and Harvard students, a UHS official said yesterday. Only a small percentage are from undergraduates.

The Joint committee on the Status of Women, an administrative organization for women in the Medical Area, filed the grievance last April after receiving statistics from an anonymous source which indicated that the two doctors--Dr. Paul I. Winig '62 and Dr. Jerome M. Federschneider--had allegedly performed an unusually high percentage of deliveries by Cesarian section or forceps over a five-month period in 1981, a committee member said.

Dr. Judith Herzfeld, chairman of the joint committee's health care division, said yesterday that the grievance was a response to a "wide variety" of complaints about UHS service, in addition to those concerning delivery methods.

An investigation of UHS practices by a Brigham and Women's committee found that all the Cesarian sections cited in the joint committee's grievance were warranted, Wacker said.

Wacker added that the figures cited in the grievance were a "statistical aberration" because they were taken over too short a time span. He added that BWH investigators are now compiling statistics on deliveries over a full year.

Winig said yesterday in a telephone interview that he was never directly contacted by investigators in regard to the grievance. "None of them were worthy of response by me," he said. Federschneider was unavailable for comment yesterday.

UHS plans to distribute 300 to 500 questionnaires, beginning next week, to women eligible for the UHS service in order to "get a better sense of whether what was being talked about is anecdotal, or not," Dr. Sholem Postel, deputy director and chief of professional services at UHS, said yesterday.

Postel said he is aware of complaints concerning the "general style of obstetric practice" and the lack of choice in approach or treatment.

In May, the Joint Committee on the Status of Women sent to about 20 graduate and undergraduate women's organizations a letter stating concern about a "consistent pattern of complaints" about the quality of UHS obstetric and gynecological care.

Elisabeth Einaudi '83, who received the letter as the president of the Radcliffe Union of Students, said yesterday she is aware of complaints ranging "from general sensitivity to thoroughness of examinations"

Complaints received by the Joint Committee indicate that patients "aren't happy with contraceptive treatment" from the two practitioners, and that the doctors allegedly display a "derogatory attitude towards patients needing abortions." Herzfeld said