DOH to hold hearings on proposed closure of Memorial Hospital’s Birthing Center

Care New England has proposed closing the Birthing Center at Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island. It announced the hospital will be restructured, in a move that will make it largely an outpatient facility featuring primary care and specialty services. / COURTESY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL OF RHODE ISLAND
Care New England has proposed closing the Birthing Center at Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island. It announced the hospital will be restructured, in a move that will make it largely an outpatient facility featuring primary care and specialty services. / COURTESY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL OF RHODE ISLAND

PAWTUCKET – In a recent press release, the Coalition to Save Memorial Hospital Birthing Center announced its support for the Department of Health’s decision to hold three public meetings regarding Care New England’s proposed closure of Memorial Hospital’s Birthing Center. The coalition is a community partnership that advocates transparency in the hospital regulatory process, continuing care for all patients and eliminating barriers to access for health care for families in Central Falls and Pawtucket.
According to the coalition, MHRI’s Birthing Center has long-served the Pawtucket and Central Falls communities, which have some of Rhode Island’s highest rates of childhood poverty, racial and ethnic health disparities, and teen pregnancies.
The Department of Health has announced these meeting dates and locations:
• Monday, March 14, 5-7 p.m., Goff Junior High School, 974 Newport Ave., Pawtucket (use the Vine Street entrance)
• Wednesday, March 16, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Woodlawn Community Center, 210 West Ave., Pawtucket
• Thursday, March 17, 4-6 p.m., Segue Institute for Learning, 325 Cowden St., Central Falls (use the Hedley Avenue entrance)
“One of the [Department of Health’s] stated goals is to identify strategies to address barriers to evidence-based care for the state’s most vulnerable populations and to ensure access to quality maternal and child health services. Closing the obstetrical unit at MHRI, which serves mostly communities of color with multilayered health disparities and significant barriers to access, is in direct opposition to the [department’s] strategic plan and health equity framework,” Alana Bibeau, Ph.D., a URI sociologist working with the coalition, said in the release. “Research, professional guidelines, statewide health care directives, hospital systems, health care quality improvement initiatives and federal and state-level maternity care legislation have identified the Ten Steps of the Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative, as outlined by the national Coalition for Improving Maternity Services, as key factors for improving maternal and infant health outcomes.” Bibeau said that MHRI, where providers offer family-centered, evidence-based care during pregnancy and thereafter, for some of Rhode Island’s most vulnerable populations, seamlessly provides many of these steps.
“The model of care at MHRI is qualitatively different than the care provided in other hospitals. Community-based care is an essential component of the Rhode Island maternity care system, along with larger tertiary care hospitals and access to safe homebirth,” Kaeli Sutton, a coalition spokesperson, said. “It costs less and results in better outcomes for mothers and babies.” If the MHRI Birthing Center were to close, she said, women most in need of family-centered pregnancy and post-partum care would face additional barriers to accessing such services.

Comments on Care New England’s proposal to close MHRI’s Birthing Center may be emailed to Paula.Pullano@health.ri.gov or mailed to: Rhode Island Department of Health, Center for Health Systems Policy and Regulation, 3 Capitol Hill, Providence, RI 02908. Comments will be accepted through March 25.

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