This one kind of hits home as I grew up about 2 blocks from the hospital in Phoenix 
and watched it grow over the years and family members have have surgeries performed there. Like many other stories we have heard in the news, this is not the first hospital to close their birthing center. With tough economic times areas that are not profitable are the first to go and the area of the hospital will be used for general or orthopedic surgeries. Orthopedic surgeries are mostly still considered very profitable and again this is not the first hospital to expand in that area.
The article notes that most patients in this area received were from the State run insurance program and we have all heard about what has happened there recently with people even being turned down for organ transplants. BD
Keith Olbermann Updates Arizona Transplant Denials–Death Panel Algorithms Provided by Subsidiary of United HealthCare (Video)
Despite pleas from nurses and support staff, John C. Lincoln Heath Network's board Thursday voted to close the money-losing birthing center at its North Mountain Hospital.
The hospital said the obstetric program will close within two months because it no longer makes financial sense to keep the center open with the region's declining birthrate and cuts to the state's Medcaid program.
That decision will affect 99 full-time, part-time and on-call nurses and support staff.
Hospital officials did not immediately know how many of those positions would be transferred to other North Mountain departments, but it is likely some of those medical professionals will lose their jobs.
Phoenix hospital closing its birth center
0 comments :
Post a Comment