Ascension Alexian Brothers will soon close its inpatient obstetrics unit after a state board voted Tuesday to allow the move, despite outcry from nurses and community members.
The state Health Facilities and Services Review Board voted 6-3, after a lengthy discussion, to approve the hospital’s application to close the unit.
Alexian Brothers has not yet announced on what date it will stop scheduling deliveries of babies, but “will be doing so shortly,” Ascension spokesperson Olga Solares said in an email.
Prior to the vote, the board received more than 40 letters and emails from people and groups opposing the change and six letters of support.
“Removing existing services will reduce accessibility to health care for hundreds of pregnant patients,” wrote Cook County Commissioner Kevin Morrison.
A number of nurses at Alexian Brothers said that closing the unit could lead to safety issues for mothers who have to drive 15 or 20 minutes farther to reach Ascension St. Alexius in Hoffman Estates.
“There are many instances in which either a mom or baby would have literally died, had our unit not been up and functioning,” wrote Wendy Pinones, who said she is a 38-year veteran labor and delivery nurse at Alexian Brothers. “Though (St. Alexius) is close by, a 15 minute window for just the transfer would have turned a good outcome into a very poor and sad outcome on more than a few occasions.”
State Sen. Cristina Castro, D-Elgin, sent a letter of support for the move, writing, “While I understand closure of inpatient obstetric services generates angst for women in our communities, the reality is that hospitals like Ascension Alexian Brothers and Ascension St. Alexius find themselves in the position of looking to the future and planning accordingly to ensure they are able to meet the varied needs of patients well into the future.”
Ascension announced in July its plan to move inpatient obstetric care from Alexian Brothers to St. Alexius.
The change would limit “unnecessary duplication of services” at the two hospitals, Alexian Brothers wrote in its application to the state to discontinue inpatient obstetric services. Also, St. Alexius already has a neonatal intensive care unit, round-the-clock obstetric emergency department and neonatal specialty care not offered at Alexian Brothers, according to the application.
Ascension also decided to move inpatient obstetrics care to St. Alexius because of lower use of the service at Alexian Brothers, according to the application. Alexian Brothers has 28 obstetric beds while St. Alexius has 38 beds, which should be enough to treat the 34 patients expected daily, on average, between the two hospitals, according to the application.
Alexian Brothers will continue to offer outpatient obstetric care as well as emergency deliveries.
The change is part of a broader movement toward establishing “centers of excellence” that focus on certain specialities, said Dr. David Bordo, chief clinical officer for Ascension Illinois, in a statement when the plan was announced in July.
Other Chicago area health systems, such as Endeavor Health, have made similar moves, concentrating certain specialties at individual hospitals within their systems.
“Across health care, and certainly here in the Chicagoland area, the creations of centers of excellence are quickly becoming best practice,” Bordo wrote. “Community hospitals no longer can provide all services to all patients while maintaining the excellent outcomes we, as well as our patients, expect.”
Alexian Brothers will also continue to focus on growth in cardiology, stroke and spine care, Ascension said in a statement.
In recent years, many community hospitals have been closing their labor and delivery units — especially in the Chicago area — saying they are seeing less demand for their services as they compete with comprehensive women’s centers within larger hospitals. Community hospitals have also been shifting their inpatient care as demand for outpatient care grows, and they’ve been refocusing on more lucrative services.
National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United was among the groups opposing the closure of the obstetrics unit. The union says that Ascension has a history of closing labor and delivery units at hospitals across the country.
The union doesn’t represent nurses at Ascension hospitals in Illinois but represents nurses at Ascension hospitals in other states.
Anastasia Villarreal, a nurse at Ascension Seton in Texas who spoke before the board Tuesday, said that she saw the consequences of her hospital receiving more obstetrics patients after a different area hospital closed.
“Some of (the obstetrics patients) are waiting so long that they miss the window for getting pain medication,” Villarreal said.
Earlier this year, Ascension significantly reduced its footprint in Illinois, selling eight of its Illinois hospitals to California-based Prime Healthcare for more than $370 million.
