South Coast Medical Center is considering discontinuing obstetric services which includes the services of Beach Cities Midwifery.
Come to the next city council meeting and let them know that the women of Southern California need and want the services of CNMs and the unique level of care they provide women seeking a less interventive hospital birth experience. Women who want a hospital birth with a midwife have fewer and fewer options in California. Please don’t let one more option disappear.
Laguna Beach City Council
Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 6:00pm
505 Forest Ave
Laguna Beach, 92651
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Tuesday, April 8, 2008
By CHRISTA WOODALL
STAFF WRITER
LAGUNA BEACH – After 49 years of welcoming newborns into the world, the ocean-view maternity center at South Coast Medical Center will close in late May as the hospital turns its attention to seniors and baby boomers, hospital executives announced Tuesday.
Bruce Christian, president and CEO of South Coast Medical Center, said an aging population in the coastal communities served by the hospital has diminished the need for a maternity ward, with 98 fewer births at the hospital from 2005 to 2007.
This decline has translated into a loss of nearly $1 million each year for a hospital that is working to raise $65 million for a state-mandated retrofit.
"It grieves us all to close the department; however, the demographics along the South Coast do not support its continued operation," Christian said.
Instead, the hospital will focus its resources on its older population, expanding its cardiac and cancer treatments and continuing gynecological services.
In 2007, 53 percent of the hospital’s acute patients were aged 50 and older, said Elizabeth Schneider, executive director of the South Coast Medical Center Foundation. In contrast, only 6 percent of patients were aged 10 and younger, she said.
"It tells you where we need to put our resources," she said.
The hospital has been in the process of strengthening its cancer care, with a new radiology group signed to manage and operate the radiology department, starting in early May. The hospital purchased state-of-the-art digital mammography equipment in 2007 and has raised $1.1 million of the $3 million needed for a linear accelerator, or "radiation zapper."
Christian became choked up when discussing the loss of 23 employees; however, he said he worked with other hospital CEOs to arrange standing job offers for the departing South Coast maternity team.
"No one will be unemployed unless they choose that option," he said. "That’s part of our responsibility."
Christian pegged the hospital’s decreasing birth rate to a lack of young families in South County’s coastal communities, theorizing that the childbearing population can better afford homes inland.
The nearest hospitals to Laguna Beach with maternity wards are Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo and Saddleback Memorial Hospital’s Laguna Hills campus.
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