Beyonce Knowles has apparently birthed a controversy along with a daughter.
Lenox Hill Hospital, the New York facility where Knowles gave birth to her first child Blue Ivy Carter over the weekend, is being investigated by the New York State Department of Health following complaints by other patients that they were mistreated by security staff, the New York Daily News reports.
"We have received complaints," a department spokesperson told the newspaper Wednesday. "Whenever we receive a complaint, we look into it. It's not necessarily an investigation. It could be a review. Most likely in this case, it would be an investigation."
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Spokespersons for Lenox Hill and the New York State Department of Health have not yet responded to TheWrap's request for comment on the investigation.
Earlier this week, multiple outlets reported that patients were complaining about being prevented from seeing their newborns in the hospital's neonatal unit by security guards who refused to give them access to the unit during Knowles' hospital stay with her husband, rapper/mogul Jay-Z. TMZ even reported that some of new mothers were considering filing a lawsuit at the hospital, after allegedly being "neglected" by hospital staff, while some mothers were seen arguing with “extremely rude” private security.
On Monday, Lenox Hill's executive director Frank Danza sought to minimize allegations that mothers were being prevented from visiting their newborns. He acknowledged that the powerful couple did “have its own security detail on site" but said that “the hospital has been and continues to be in control of managing all security at the facility.”
“We have made every effort to ensure minimal disruption to other families experiencing the births of their own children over the past three days,” Danza said in a statement obtained by TheWrap.
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He said that no security plan that either the hospital or the couple’s security team put in place “would have prevented or delayed families from gaining access to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), and to date, no families have complained to the hospital about being denied access to the NICU."
Danza also dismissed reports that couple had rented out an entire floor of the maternity ward during their stay, saying that they stayed in "an executive suite at the hospital," and that such suites are available "for any patient."