A vigil was held in Bedford Stuyvesant on Wednesday to honor Christine Fields, a pregnant Black woman who died at NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull last year from hemorrhaging, following an emergency Cesarean section.
Held one year to the day of Fields’ passing, the vigil was attended by family members, friends and advocates dressed in purple, Fields' favorite color. Some also wore purple shirts with pictures of Fields’ smiling face, while others held signs calling for justice.
“Find your doula, have a birthing plan, get your midwives, ask all the questions,” said Denene Witherspoon, Fields' mother, when asked if she had any advice for pregnant Black women giving birth at the hospital. “If you’re in pain, speak, scream, yell.”
The somber event opened with a prayer for Fields, followed by her family playing a recording of Fields singing I Won’t Complain, a song by Rev. Paul Jones. Friends and family gathered around Witherspoon as she shed tears listening to her daughter’s voice.
“My daughter had a beautiful heart, mind and soul– she wasn't just beautiful, but intelligent,” said Witherspoon, who talked about her daughter's bachelors’ degree in criminal justice.
Fields’ family has filed a $41 million lawsuit against Woodhull, part of the city’s public hospital system. The family alleges the hospital system and Woodhull were “careless and negligent” in their care for Fields and her now one-year old son Anuel Perez, while he was in utero.
Fields was a mother of three and was a fiancée to Jose Perez, who also attended the rally with his two older children, Liam, 5, and Nova, 3. He said he recently met with New York Attorney General Letitia James so she could become familiar with Fields and to push for the passage of Grieving Families Act, which would allow families to sue for emotional damages following the wrongful death of a relative.
"Hopefully the work I’m doing, as much as I’m sharing Christine’s story and keeping Christine alive, spiritually, it should work,” said Perez, referring to getting the Grieving Families Act passed.
Ira Newman, the family’s attorney and a lawyer at Sanocki Newman & Turret, LLP, said that in cases where damages are awarded for grief, there isn’t a limited threshold for the amount of money that can be granted. Currently, New York state’s wrongful death laws only allow families to sue for financial damages.
“It’d be dependent on what they say and what they can prove [to a jury],” said Newman.
Newman said that depositions by the family and the hospital are expected to happen in December.
Among the crowd of supporters was Bruce McIntyre III, who said he lost his pregnant fiancée Amber Rose Isaac to medical negligence at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx in 2020.
“This never should've happened and this doesn’t need to continue to happen, but unfortunately we’re gonna be standing in this same area next year advocating for someone else if this does not stop,” said McIntyre, listing off demands including greater access to birthing centers, healthcare and the passage of the Grieving Families Act.
“Black women need to quit dying in this system and it needs to stop, and Woodhull needs to be held accountable,” he said.
Since 2020, there have been three women of color including Christine Fields who died after giving birth at Woodhull Hospital. The most recent death was that of 24-year-old Bevorlin Garcia Barrios on Sept. 15, who also lost her life after an emergency C-Section.
Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy related issues than white women, according to the Centers for Diseases Control. In New York City, that number triples, with Black women being nine times more likely than white women to face death.
Perez said his daughter goes by her bedroom window every night to look up at the sky and speaks to her mom in heaven.
The vigil ended with the release of purple balloons, up into the same night sky Nova communicates with her mother.
“No amount of money in the world is going to bring my daughter back, but it’s just so other families won’t have to suffer," Witherspoon said.
Witherspoon also noted that she has not heard from the hospital since her daughter's passing.
Woodhull did not respond to BK Reader's request for comment.
At 11:00am on Saturday, Nov. 16, a rally will be held at the hospital, 760 Broadway, to shine a light on maternal deaths of women of color at the medical center.
