Hospitals To Stop Delivering Babies Thanks To Obamacare

Here is one in Southwestern Pennsylvania;

A southwestern Pennsylvania hospital will stop delivering babies after March 31 because its obstetricians are either leaving or refocusing their practices, and because hospital officials believe they can't afford it based on projected reimbursements under looming federal health care reforms.

The Windber Medical Center, about 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, is losing two obstetricians and two others are shifting their focus more to gynecology.

Hospital officials say the population of women of child-bearing age is dropping and that the number of births the hospital would be called upon to perform isn't enough for it to provide the service in the face of lower reimbursements under the federal Affordable Care Act.

The hospital delivered about 200 babies each year since restarting its obstetrics program in 2005.

Officials aren't sure how many jobs will be lost.

and one here in Westerly, RI as well:

The Westerly Hospital will stop delivering babies after June 1.

Managers and medical staff executives were informed Tuesday by hospital administrators that deliveries would no longer occur at the hospital and that a plan for the remainder of the hospital’s ob-gyn services is under development.

“This is a very sad day for the patients and the employees of the women’s health center, many of them have worked delivering the families of the Westerly community for 30 to 40 years,” Jacqueline Desmond, vice president of United Nurses and Allied Professionals Local 5075, the union which represents the hospital’s nurses said.

Dr. Christopher Lehrach, The Westerly Hospital chief transformation officer—interim operations, said the decision to stop deliveries at the hospital follows years of review and uncertainty at the hospital’s Women’s Health Center. The June 1 deadline was set because of the imminent loss of a nurse mid-wife and notification from one of the hospital’s two remaining obstetrics physicians that he planned to stop performing deliveries at Westerly Hospital and would instead be delivering babies at “another Washington County hospital,” Lehrach said.

Additionally, Lehrach said a shortage of pediatricians available to attend to pediatric patients in the hospital also contributed to the decision to stop deliveries.

Lehrach said the decision was a difficult one that hospital administrators had put off for years, in part, because of the emotional connection members of the community have to the hospital through maternity services at the hospital.

“For the longest time the picture of a community hospital included a specific center or labor and delivery floor” but that has changed, Lehrach said. The days of hospitals having just one or two obstetrics doctors who are virtually on call at “all times” has given way to contemporary practices that see doctors on call just one in every 4 or 6 nights. To accommodate those changes hospitals must employ 4 to 6 obstetric physicians, he said.

During the 14 years he has worked at the hospital, Lehrach said the number of births at Westerly Hospital has declined from about 500 per year to about 320 in 2012. Fewer than 300 births were projected this year. Lehrach attributed the reduction in births to changing demographics in the region, most notably in Westerly where he said the number of young couples living in the town had fallen because of the high cost of living.

“Financially it is just not feasible unless it is heavily subsidized,” Lehrach said of hospital child births.

Check back for updates and a full story in Thursday’s edition.

Obamacare is causing doctors and nurses to leave the profession.
This is causing care coverage shortages in many places.

Get used to it.
Less services will likely be the result.
It's already beginning to materialize.
These are two hospitals... there are likely more across the country.


Not only that, but the high cost of living is driving people to leave for states where taxes and overall cost of living is less.

Seriously, whoever heard of a hospital not being able to deliver babies?