{"id":44496,"date":"2023-06-08T16:11:11","date_gmt":"2023-06-08T20:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelandmark.com\/?p=44496"},"modified":"2023-06-08T16:11:11","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T20:11:11","slug":"legislators-want-to-negotiate-to-prevent-closure-of-leominster-hospital-maternity-ward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/2023\/06\/08\/legislators-want-to-negotiate-to-prevent-closure-of-leominster-hospital-maternity-ward\/","title":{"rendered":"Legislators want to negotiate to prevent closure of Leominster Hospital maternity ward"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Image<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Leominster campus of UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital. \/ File Photo<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By David Dore
<\/strong>Leominster Champion<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LEOMINSTER \u2014 Local legislators want to know why, after they fought for millions of state dollars to go to its parent organization last year, plans are moving forward to close the maternity ward at Leominster Hospital without speaking with them first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five members of the North Central Massachusetts legislative delegation \u2014 Sen. John Cronin (D-Fitchburg) and Reps. Natalie Higgins (D-Leominster), Meghan Kilcoyne (D-Clinton), Michael Kushmerek (D-Fitchburg) and Margaret Scarsdale (D-Pepperell) \u2014 sent a letter this week to Dr. Eric Dickson, president of UMass Memorial Health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The letter asks Dickson to negotiate with the legislators to stop the proposed closure of the Labor and Delivery Unit at Leominster Hospital. In May, UMass Memorial Health submitted its plan to the state Department of Public Health to close the unit in September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The letter, released by Cronin\u2019s office on Thursday, June 8, states the legislators are \u201cdismayed at your decision not to engage our delegation to address challenges to the Labor & Delivery unit in Leominster.\u201d It asked why they were not made aware of the plans to close the maternity unit until it was made public the week before Memorial Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy did you not ask for resources and support to avoid the elimination of this essential service to two Gateway Cities?\u201d the letter states. \u201cWill you commit to working with the North Central delegation and telling us what resources UMass Memorial needs to keep the Labor & Delivery unit open?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The legislators pointed out in their letter that they had supported a bill passed in November 2022 to appropriate more than $33 million to UMass Memorial Health to \u201cstabilize the delivery of essential services in Central Massachusetts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steve Roach, president of the entities that run Leominster Hospital, Burbank Hospital in Fitchburg, Clinton Hospital and Marlborough Hospital, said in a statement last month the closure of the maternity ward is needed because of staff shortages and falling birth rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis was an especially difficult decision for our health system, as our compassionate caregivers have helped thousands of parents and families navigate the birthing journey and welcome new loved ones into their lives for so many decades,\u201d Roach said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so, he said, \u201cIn recent years, industry-wide workforce shortages have exacerbated the challenges of fully staffing our maternity inpatient unit consistently at HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital, despite our persistent attempts to recruit and retain clinicians in this region. This, along with the steadily declining number of births in North Central Massachusetts, has a significant impact on our unit\u2019s future capacity to provide labor and delivery care to our patients.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The closure of Leominster Hospital\u2019s Labor and Delivery Unit would leave more than 100,000 residents in the Leominster area with options at least half an hour away: Heywood Hospital in Gardner, UMass Memorial and St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, and Emerson Hospital in Concord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local legislators and Leominster Hospital nurses such as Miko Nakagawa, co-chair of the Massachusetts Nurses Association\u2019s local bargaining unit, said UMass Memorial Health made no attempts to prevent the proposed closure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAny of the problems with staffing that the hospital is claiming as justification for closing are unwarranted and the direct result of UMass management\u2019s efforts to boost profits at the expense of patient care and safety,\u201d Nakagawa said at a May 30 rally in front of the hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Department of Public Health must still decide whether the Labor and Delivery Unit is an essential service in the region that should remain open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so, the legislators pointed out in a June 8 press release, that would not prevent UMass Memorial Health from closing the unit. The DPH ruled in 2018 Leominster Hospital\u2019s inpatient pediatric unit was \u201cnecessary for preserving access and health status\u201d in the region, the press release stated, but UMass went forward with its plan to shut it down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Leominster campus of UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital. \/ File Photo By David DoreLeominster Champion LEOMINSTER \u2014 Local legislators want to know why, after they fought for millions of state dollars to go to its parent organization last year, plans are moving forward to close the maternity ward at Leominster Hospital without speaking with them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}