Illinois SB 1600

The following information was provided by Debbie Boucher, CNM, a nurse-miwife who provides homebirth services in Lake County. It provides great insight into current homebirth practices in Illinois, currently only available through CNMs and MDs who are able to provide these services.

The current Nurse Practice law in Illinois requires Advanced Practice Nurses (APNs) to have a written collaborative agreement (WCA) signed by an MD. Without a WCA, we are not allowed to practice. This law applies to Debbie because as a certified nurse midwife (CNM) I am also an APN, which is how she is licensed. She is asking you to call and/or send a letter to your Illinois senator, asking him/her to support SB 1600, which is a new bill to eliminate the WCA requirement.

The Nurse Practice law was already amended recently to allow hospital-based CNMs to practice without a WCA, so it is only fair that independent CNMs be allowed to practice without one. SB 1600 also affects all other types of independent APNs, like Family Nurse Practitioners, Women’s Health Nurse Practitioners, Geriatric Nurse Practitioners, and the APNs providing medical care at Walgreens, Walmart, etc.

Click here to find your senator and his/her phone number.

When you make your phone call, here is what you could say:
Hello, my name is __________, I live in __(town)__, and I’m a constituent of Senator _________. I am calling to ask the senator to please support SB 1600. I appreciate the comprehensive and cost-effective healthcare provided by Advanced Practice Nurses. I understand that many APNs find it difficult to find doctors to sign their written collaborating agreement. SB 1600 will empower APNs to work within their scope of practice without a collaborator restricting their professional role as safe and effective healthcare providers. Does the senator plan to vote yes for this bill?

Here are more details about how this bill affects the practices of CNMs and the health of women and families of Illinois.

Midwives like Debbie Boucher spend around 6 years in school to become a licensed midwife, so they can legally offer midwifery services to the women of northeast Illinois. Debbie is currently the only full-scope CNM in Lake County. She also serves parts of McHenry and Kane counties, where there are no CNMs, and Cook County where there are only three CNMs providing home birth. The midwife who works with her serves the women of Dupage, Cook, Kendall, and Will counties also.

After Debbie graduated, she met with individual MDs and groups of MDs, totaling over 36 MDs to find one to sign her WCA, so she could start her practice. Most of the doctors said that they would have no problem providing back-up to her, but none of them would sign her WCA. They did not want to have any kind of agreement in writing.

Debbie finally found one MD in Cook County to sign the WCA, but he has stated on numerous occasions that this should be considered a temporary agreement until she finds an MD in Lake County to sign it. He is also subject to the whims of the hospital administration where he practices, who may decide that they don’t want to support home birth midwives, even as indirectly as that relationship would be.

Thus, Debbie's (or any other CNM providing homebirths...only four in the Chicago area!) ability to practice could be gone tomorrow if her collaborating MD were to change his mind or if his hospital administration were to find out and exert their control.

That is why SB 1600 is so very important to Debbie Boucher and to the women she serves in Lake, McHenry, Kane, Cook, Dupage, Kendall, and Will counties. It is one of the best ways to ensure the ability for women in the Chicago area to birth at home and away from a hospital.

After you make your call, please contact Debbie Boucher through her website (www.yourbirth.com) or call her at 847-816-4640 to let her know how it went and if the senator plans to support the bill. She’ll forward your comments to the ISAPN people who are working on the bill.

If you have time to send a letter you can say the same things as above, and also add text from the email below.