A message from our CEO, Samantha Suffich:
The Martin County Healthy Start Coalition is very concerned about the decision of Cleveland Clinic to discontinue maternity services at its Martin North Hospital at the end of March. This decreases our community’s level of maternity care access and moves us in the direction of becoming a maternity care desert. In effect, expectant mothers will have to travel beyond their home county to have to their babies. This is very distressing for pregnant women and for their families because it causes financial strain and increases prenatal stress and anxiety.
It’s also dangerous. Pregnancies are unpredictable. While it’s inconvenient to go out of the county for the actual birth of the baby, it’s life-endangering for both mother and baby not to have ready access to obstetric services if an emergency occurs during pregnancy. This will add undue stress to our emergency medical service infrastructure.
The maximum distance a pregnant woman drives to a delivery room is ideally within 30 minutes. According to the March of Dimes, the farther a woman has to travel to get maternity care, the higher her chances of having health problems and complications for her baby. Martin County pregnant moms will be bumping up against this maximum distance and perhaps will need to consider traveling to Jupiter Medical Center or St. Lucie Medical Center as an alternative to the hospital system in their own community.
There are more than 1240 births in Martin County each year. This number has been steady for the past ten years and reached a high of 1,298 in 2022. So, we are concerned for more than 1240 families who will have to navigate this dramatic shift in access to maternity care each and every year.
The Martin County Healthy Start Coalition will continue to be here for our moms and babies, as we have been since our inception 30 years ago. At the beginning of the year, our MOM Mobile: Maternity on the Move will bring prenatal care to expectant mothers in our neighborhoods where families struggle with transportation and access to care. Our doula program continues to be a stable foundation for prenatal education and birth support for families wherever their baby is born. And our maternal safety team will continue to work with all healthcare providers and community partners to make sure that every family receives the respectful care that they deserve.
Our unwavering commitment to every baby born healthy, every mother supported, and every father involved may feel more daunting with Cleveland Clinic’s withdrawal from the field, but we are dedicated to our community with a refreshed vision of hope where we can redefine maternity care for Martin County’s families in the near future.
Sincerely, |
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