Event to be held at the intersection of Washington St. and Grove Ave.
As Leominster Birthing Center Closure Looms, Advocates Make Impassioned Calls to Governor to Stay UMass Memorial Execution of Maternal Child Healthcare in Worcester County
Birthing Center advocates hopes were raised yesterday when the Governor’s office released a statement announcing the Governor was “aware of the concerns raised by the community and…are reviewing the situation”
LEOMINSTER, MA – With just two days until UMass Memorial Health’s planned closure of the Birthing Center at Leominster Hospital, supporters of the service have launched an impassioned effort to save the center, with calls and emails into the office of Governor Maura Healey, urging her to utilize her authority to issue a stay of what they see as the veritable execution of safe maternal child healthcare for vulnerable mothers and newborns throughout all of Worcester County.
Yesterday, supporters’ hopes were raised when the Healey administration released a statement announcing, “Our administration is committed to protecting access to high quality maternal health care for all Massachusetts communities. We are aware of the concerns raised by the community and local officials about the impending closure of the UMass Memorial Leominster campus and are reviewing the situation.”
As the clock ticks and the last days pass until Sept. 23, all eyes turn to the Governor and the hope that she will decide to address what is truly a public health crisis. To draw attention to the issue in its closing days, as well as to recognize the vital role of the Birthing Center and its dedicated staff, the legislators of North Central Worcester County will be hosting a candlelight vigil on Washington St. outside Leominster Hospital this tonight at 7 p.m. where community members and supporters can gather, awaiting a reprieve for the Birthing Center from the corner office of the State House.
“Failure to maintain this service, one that the Healey administration has deemed to be essential to the public health of our region, represents a death warrant for many of the most vulnerable mothers and newborns in Worcester County who will now be forced to travel long distances for care that they should be receiving here in their own community,” said Irene Hernandez, a member of the Pocasset Wampanoag Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation and co-chair of Community United to Save OUR Birthing Center, a grassroots coalition of residents, public officials, caregivers and community advocates from throughout Northern Worcester County formed to fight the closure, which includes groups representing a significant number of poor and BIPOC residents whose health and safety will be placed most at risk by the closure.
“Tensions in the community have increased after UMass Memorial refused to follow a call by the Department of Public Health to delay the closure due the lack of a sufficient plan to protect the community and most recently, having rejected a plea by Leominster’s Mayor to delay the closure in light of the devastation caused by the recent, state declared, flooding disaster, which has limited access to ambulance and other services that would be required to deliver birthing mothers to faraway health centers,” according to Eladia Romero, a board member with the Spanish American Center, who serves as a co-chair of Community United to Save OUR Birthing Center coalition.
Advocates Hope for Governor’s Intervention Heightened After Surprise Visit to Center
Supporters’ hopes for the Governor’s intervention to save the program have been raised after she met with one of the maternity nurses and coalition members at a local farm visit in Fitchburg on Sept. 7, where she heard their concerns about the impact of the closure on the community. The encounter prompted the Governor to make an immediate surprise visit to the Birthing Center, where she spent several minutes speaking with the nurses on the unit, getting a tour of the unit and an unvarnished account from nurses on the frontlines of this issue as to what this closure could mean to the patients for whom they have dedicated their careers to provide first-rate care.
“It is important to note that while the Governor took the time to make a personal visit to the Center to meet with our staff, Dr. Eric Dickson, CEO of UMass who is behind this tragic decision, has never stepped foot on the unit, nor made any effort to seek the input of those actually working on the unit,” said Tara Corey, RN, the maternity nurse who first met with the Governor on her visit to Fitchburg. “If he had, we are sure he wouldn’t be pursuing this closure, one that he has justified based on blatantly false premises. If he took the time to hear the truth about our program and the true impact it will have on this community we doubt anyone, especially a physician, would ever allow this harm to take place.”
According to State Representative Natalie Higgins of Leominster, in communications with the Governor after the visit, she came away impressed with what she learned. In fact, Higgins and other policymakers in the region were further encouraged when a few days later, while touring the devastation caused by the flooding in Leominster, the Governor reiterated the DPH’s concerns regarding the readiness by UMass to proceed with the closure.
“Governor Healey’s Department of Public Health took an unprecedented and courageous stand on September 1st, declaring UMass Memorial Health was not ready to close the Birthing Center at Leominster Hospital and demanding a delay of the closure,” said State Representative Natalie Higgins (Leominster). “Ten days later, on September 11th, no one could have imagined the disastrous impacts the flooding would have on the City of Leominster, and yet UMass Memorial Health unconscionably continues to move forward with the closure. Our entire community is looking to Governor Healey to intervene and ensure our community maintains these critical and essential services, especially in light of the devastation Leominster has experienced in the last week.”
The push to delay or stop the closure has been building for months, as the entire region has mobilized to oppose it. Since the UMass announcement of the closure prior to Memorial Day, thousands of residents have joined the effort to stop it. More than 4,000 residents have officially signed onto the campaign, with hundreds requesting and posting signs on their lawns in five different languages. More than 200 attended the DPH public hearing on the closure providing compelling testimony that disproved every rationale posited by UMass to justify the closure.
With the fate of the most vulnerable mothers in the region hanging in the balance, and given the unconscionable decision by UMass to reject the DPH and the Mayor’s call to delay the closure, the Community United Coalition has activated a social media campaign to urge residents and advocates to turn up the heat on the Governor to act. See infographic below:
Governor has viable legal option to intervene and protect the community
While the DPH has stated that it lacks the authority to stop the closure, despite its finding that this service is essential to preserve access to care for the community, and despite issuing its own call to delay the closure, advocates, including attorneys hired by the City of Leominster to investigate the process believe there are many legal options the Governor could pursue to protect the community.
In a memo to the City shared with the Governor and other officials, Robert Ross, the attorney with Greenberg Traurig who specializes in administrative law, cites DPH’s “ample authority under its licensure regulations to prevent a hospital from closing an essential service or to take various administrative actions against a hospital that ignores the Department’s instructions with respect to closing an essential service.” Ross goes on to state that such action is wholly justified and the DPH “can require the hospital, as a condition of licensure to withdraw its plan to close the birthing center until the Hospital is able to submit a plan for doing so in compliance with the Department’s regulations…In fact the Department of Public Health has already concluded in its September 1 letter that the hospital’s plan did not satisfy the department’s requirements.” The Governor also has authority to stop the closure under the provisions of the law related to her declaration of a state of emergency in response to the flooding in Leominster.
An additional avenue for the Governor, according the City’s attorney, would be for the Governor to declare a public health emergency related to the maternal child health impact caused by the closure, stating “The Governor’s authority to declare a public health emergency is exceptionally broad – it can be declared with respect to any ‘emergency’ that is detrimental to the public health.” Supporters of the Birthing Center point to the administration’s own alarming report issued in August that shows the deterioration in the quality and safety of maternal child health in the Commonwealth over the last 10 years, which has resulted in a dramatic increase in birthing complications and maternal child mortality for communities of color, the very population placed most at risk by this closure.
As the closure date approaches, more organizations and concerned residents are joining the Community United’s call to stop the closure. Three weeks ago the NAACP sent a letter to UMass Memorial CEO Eric Dickson and Governor Healey calling for the preservation of the Birthing Center and a week later, the March of Dimes, the nation’s leading authority on the issue of access to maternal child health services issued its own letter opposing the closing, writing, “We strongly oppose the closure of this unit for the Fitchburg and Leominster families it serves, and for the impact that it will have on the entirety of Worcester County. We urge the Department of Public Health and Governor Healey’s administration to take whatever steps are needed to intervene to protect the public health of these communities.”
Lack of Staff and Resources to Absorb North County Patients at UMass’s Worcester-based Hospital Places Region at Risk
And in recent weeks information has surfaced that shows the impact of the closure on the health and safety of mothers and newborns by the closure is not limited to Northern Worcester County but places the health and safety of families throughout all of Worcester County in jeopardy, with nurses at UMass Memorial Medical Center’s Maternity Center going public with information detailing serious safety concerns for patients at UMass’ flagship campus, the facility UMass has assured the public can easily absorb the Leominster Birthing Center’s patients.
“We are barely capable of safely managing our current patient population given the number of patients we serve, the acuity level of the patients we care for and the length of stay many of these complex patients require for their pre and postnatal care,” explained UMass Memorial Maternity Center’s Barbara Labuff, RN at a press conference held by Worcester legislators on Sept. 11, the same day as the flooding in Leominster. “On many days it is simply unmanageable as we struggle to shift patients out of beds and rooms meant for labor and delivery to other settings in the unit that are ill prepared for managing these deliveries, or to delay waiting admissions from the ED or from other facilities, including Health Alliance Leominster due to lack of appropriate staff, equipment or other resources. To experience the stress we all have been feeling under current conditions, to see our administration make a decision to close yet another local service and expect us to once again deal with the consequences – it is unacceptable and it is dangerous.”
North County Legislators Host Vigil Thursday at 7 p.m.
As the clock ticks and the last days pass until Sept. 23, all eyes turn to the Governor and the hope that she will step up to address what is truly a public health crisis. To draw attention to the issue in its closing days, as well as to recognize the vital role of the Birthing Center and its dedicated staff, the legislators of North Central Worcester County will be hosting a candlelight vigil on Washington St. outside Leominster Hospital this Thursday, Sept. 21st at 7 p.m. where community members and supporters can gather, awaiting a reprieve for the Birthing Center from the corner office of the State House.
“Failure to act in the face of this unprecedented maternal child health crisis would be a travesty, and once again, it is the poor and black and brown women who will pay the ultimate price for this inaction,” said Hernandez.
For more information, visit the “Leave Labor in Leominster” Facebook page.
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