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"Rose's Law," named after 36-year-old Rose Church, who died
of a heart attack 10 days after giving birth in 1998, requires
insurers in Alabama to cover post-pregnancy hospital stays up to
48 hours. It was championed by her widower, Gene Church, who
said she was discharged too quickly and without proper tests.
State Senator Larry Stutts, a Republican first elected in
November 2014, was Church's gynecologist at the time of her
death, and was named in a lawsuit filed by the widower. Stutts
introduced his measure on March 18, billing it in a subsequent
Facebook posting as a means to eliminate intrusion into
doctor-patient relations and as getting rid of
"one-size-fits-all Obamacare-style laws."
Church views it differently.
"This was a personal vendetta. The irony is that 16 years later
no one remembered what happened with my wife, or very few people
did," Church said. "Now, sadly for him, everybody is going to
know."
Church filed a lawsuit against Stutts, the hospital where his
wife gave birth and a second doctor, alleging medical
malpractice. It was settled on confidential terms.
Church, 54, who now resides in Florida, said he had been unaware
of the doctor's recent election until Church's daughter, now 16,
told him of the attempt to undo "Rose's Law."
Several state lawmakers, after learning in recent days of
Stutts's connection to the original law - first reported on
Sunday by the news website Alabama Political Reporter - have
called Church and said they would not support its repeal, Church
said, adding the odds of it being overturned are remote.
Stutts did not immediately respond to messages left at his
legislative and medical offices.
The measure, Senate Bill 289, which has six co-sponsors, would
also end a requirement that doctors inform women when finding
dense breast tissue, which is associated with an increased risk
of breast cancer, during a mammogram.
(Reporting by Jonathan Kaminsky in New Orleans; Editing by Ken
Wills)
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