• State’s Vital Records and Columbus Regional Healthcare tell different stories about why “Hispanic” wasn’t shown as parents’ race on birth certificates.

By BOB HIGH
Staff Writer

The race of the parents of Hispanic children in Columbus County are shown correctly in 2001, 2002 and part of 2003 in the Register of Deeds’ records.

But, for part of 2003, all of 2004, 2005 and nine months of 2006, all Hispanic parents are shown as “white” on their child’s birth certificate.

What’s going on?

Columbus Regional Healthcare officials say the problem is with the state’s Vital Records computer software.

Officials with the state’s Vital Records say their software hasn’t changed since the mid 1990s.

The change last fall by local hospital employees in showing “Hispanic” as the race of parents on birth certificates has been available all the time.

Simple solution

Births of “Mexican” and “Hispanic” children are considered “white” in the state’s classification. But, for the Hispanic parents who complain about being labeled “white,” the solution is simple.

“Hispanic” or “Mexican” is now being entered by hospital workers.

Darren McKeithan, Columbus Healthcare vice president for Health Information Management, said his workers called Raleigh after complaints and were told to use the “Other” choice on the computer system.

The “Other” choice brings up a blank line and the worker types “Hispanic” or “Mexican” and this information in printed on the birth certificate, and is filed with the county’s Register of Deeds.

“Whatever we’ve been told by Raleigh, we’ve changed over the period of time,” McKeithan said of the hospital practice.

He could not explain why “Hispanic” stopped being shown as race some time in 2003, and didn’t return to birth certificates until October 2006.

‘Green and pink’

“The determination of race is a self-declaration. If a person comes in and several of us see he’s green and pink, but says he’s ‘white,’ then we don’t dispute it. We just enter it,” said Glenn Cutler, registrar with the state’s Vital Records Division.

“I understand they’re blaming the problem on us. I’m not surprised, but the choice to enter the race desired by the parent has been there all the time,” Cutler said.

Cutler also noted he couldn’t remember another county having this problem with birth certificates.

Officials with schools in Columbus County and the county’s Department of Social Services report the birth certificate problem doesn’t affect funding for their organizations.

However, the same is not so for the county’s Health Department. “The problem doesn’t change funding now, but will cause problems in the future,” Kim Smith, director of the county’s health unit said.

Could affect funding

“I’m really surprised at what has happened. It shocks me a little. Our funding is based – in part – on numbers and this could affect the money available to Columbus County.

“Half of the women we see in our pre-natal care clinic are Hispanic, and they have no insurance.

Their income is unstable based on the documents they provide to us,” Smith said.

“The state gives the Health Department funding to help people based on income.

The women in our pre-natal clinic get help ranging from 100 percent to nothing, but most of the time the patient’s income is very little, and this means we have more costs,” the director pointed out.

Kandace Whitehead, Register of Deeds here, said she has no control over what’s shown on birth certificates. “I just accept them, file them, keep them and provide copies of them. I have nothing to do with the information on them,” she said.