Georgia hospital unit closure leaves pregnant women scrambling

A hospital in rural northeast Georgia will soon close its labor and delivery unit, leaving pregnant women in the area scrambling to find new health care providers and raising concerns about access to prenatal care.Next month, St. Mary’s Healthcare System will shut down its Clear Creek OB-GYN in Lavonia, Georgia, impacting hundreds of pregnant women in Stephens, Franklin, Hart, and Elbert counties. According to a nurse who works there, the area serves many who struggle to make ends meet and rely on Medicaid. The most common barrier pregnant women face in getting the prenatal care they need is transportation. The nurse, who wished to remain anonymous, expressed concern that women will have to choose between getting prenatal care and keeping their jobs.”There are going to be patients that have babies that they lose. They’re going to be patients that have morbidities as a result of not being able to get the care that they were accessing before,” the nurse said. Tammy Frye and Christy Wynn, who help many of these women at the Hart Life Pregnancy Center, reported that patients are desperate.”They are frantic, and they are heartbroken,” they said.One of their pregnant clients, Deanna Florez, already drives more than an hour to and from appointments.”When I had my son, I had seizures. And so, it was a struggle trying to get trying to drive back and forth. But yeah, that is going to be really difficult for a lot of women here,” Florez said.The nurse also highlighted the transportation challenges faced by patients.”We had a lot of patients that would have to come in by ambulance, even still, even only living 10 minutes away, because there simply was no other alternative for them to get to us,” the nurse said.Without access, pregnant women may not be able to get prenatal care, and for those due after Oct. 27, they may not even have a doctor to deliver their baby. St. Mary’s Healthcare System assured that patients have been contacted and will be supported with a smooth and safe transition of care to St. Mary’s Hospital in Athens or other area facilities and providers.”These things are preventable, or at least able to be caught with regular routine prenatal care. And if Medicaid patients can’t access that, that’s going to cause some massive issues for their health overall,” the nurse said.Frye, Wynn and the anonymous nurse worry that without a nearby unit, women may not be able to get the prenatal care they need, leading to more sick or lost babies.In a speech Sunday, Sen. Jon Ossoff said,“In Lavonia, St. Mary’s Hospital, they’ve announced they will no longer provide obstetric services to delivering mothers because of decisions made by politicians. Evans Memorial Hospital in Southeast Georgia, confronting the fact that they may have to cut their ICU because of decisions made by politicians,” he said. “It’s not a mystery that in a flourishing society, the means of achieving health and long life are a right accessible to all, and not just to those who live in the right place or have the means, especially when the disappearance of those services for the people is a result of the pursuit of other priorities, namely to further enrich those who already have the most.”St. Mary’s Healthcare System issued a statement saying: Like all hospitals across Georgia, St. Mary’s Sacred Heart continues to face significant challenges. To ensure the sustainability of St. Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital and address these increasing challenges, St. Mary’s Health Care System will be consolidating labor and delivery services into one location at St. Mary’s Hospital in Athens. St. Mary’s Medical Group will also discontinue care at Clear Creek OB/GYN in Lavonia. This transition will take effect in late October.This decision follows an extensive 18-month discernment process that included intensive efforts to recruit additional physicians, create new partnerships, and pursue incremental funding sources. Changing demographics in our region, physician recruitment challenges, increasing outmigration for labor and delivery services, and recent Congressional cuts to Medicaid solidified this decision.St. Mary’s takes great pride in and is thankful for the exceptional care provided in the Mother-Baby Unit. The dedication of our staff, physicians and the meaningful role this unit has played over the years has been outstanding. Our exhaustive discernment showed this difficult decision was necessary to continue serving our community and its evolving care needs. We remain committed to supporting patients and colleagues through the transition.Patients have been contacted and will be supported with a smooth and safe transition of care to St. Mary’s Hospital in Athens or other area facilities and providers. St. Mary’s Family Birth Center in Athens includes a Level II Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, a c-section suite, lactation education and support, and a facility that allows mothers to labor, deliver, recover and receive post-partum care in one room.Sacred Heart Hospital’s Emergency Department is led by board-certified emergency medicine physicians and is fully capable of evaluating, stabilizing and treating all patients, including those seeking gynecological and obstetrical care. As in all emergency departments, if a higher level of care is needed, the patient would be transferred by ambulance to the nearest appropriate facility. St. Mary’s is committed to supporting impacted staff and colleagues who wish to continue their employment with St. Mary’s in finding appropriate positions.

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