Prime Healthcare is set to cut obstetrics care at three of its Chicago-area hospitals, the healthcare system announced in a news release.
OB services will no longer be available at Resurrection Medical Center in Chicago, St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet and Mercy Medical Center in Aurora, effective Oct. 1.
The plan is to shift OB services to St. Mary of Nazareth Hospital in Chicago and Olympia Fields Hospital in Olympia Fields and turn its focus to maternal health in the community, according to the news release. Prime will invest $1 million in grant money to initiatives at local nonprofits working to improve maternal health and expand access to prenatal and postpartum care.
“Concentrating maternity services at established centers like Saint Mary’s ensures the highest levels of quality and patient safety, addressing maternal health disparities,” Dr. Devyani Chawla, director of the Birthing Center at St. Mary of Nazareth, said in the news release.
The three hospitals losing OB services have less than one delivery per day, Prime said, and financial woes and changes in ownership made it “impossible to ensure the very best quality of care for the patients served.”
California-based Prime Healthcare bought nine Illinois Hospitals from Ascension last year, and has been met with skepticism and criticism by employees since. Nurses at St. Mary of Nazareth said conditions at the hospital tanked after Prime bought the hospital, which prompted them to consider unionizing. At least six nurses were fired shortly thereafter.
“I think it sent a message to the nurses in our community that we’re expendable, and when we speak up for each other, they’ll get rid of us with no just cause,” Karlie Thorn, one of the fired nurses, told the Sun-Times in June.
Nurses were attempting to unionize with the National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United, which has criticized the healthcare system heavily. Mariah Robinson, an OB nurse at St. Mary of Nazareth, said the decision to cut OB services is linked to anti-union sentiment from the healthcare system.
“It’s unacceptable that Prime is closing down OB services at other facilities. It’s also interesting that this announcement indicates that Prime is closing these services at facilities where nurses are not organized or organizing with our union, NNOC, the most powerful voice for RNs in Illinois and throughout the country,” Robinson said in a statement from NNU. “That said, we will not stop advocating for patients at every hospital where patients are subjected to Prime’s and the Reddy Family’s greed.”