Elected Officials And Community Members Fight For Maternal Health Resources
Elected Officials And Community Members Fight For Maternal Health Resources
By Tia Carol Jones
As Black Maternal Health legislation continues to gain local and national attention, local elected officials are calling on a local hospital to reinstate the nurse midwifery privileges of a healthcare entity that has been serving the community for decades.
On Monday, January 6, 2025, elected officials and community members, along with midwives and doctors joined together to call for the reinstatement of labor and delivery privileges of the PCC Wellness Community Center midwives at West Suburban Medical Center.
Resilience Healthcare owns West Suburban Medical and Weiss Hospital, which is located on the city’s North side. Dr. Manoj K. Prasad is the CEO of Resilience Healthcare.
A news release published on the West Suburban Medical Center’s website, titled “A Message from the West Suburban Mother and Baby Unit,” said that the hospital was embarking on a new chapter, with a nationally recognized team of experienced OBGYNs, called the OB Hospitalist Group.
The message from the hospital’s website acknowledges the work that the nurse midwives at PCC provided throughout the years and that the hospital’s offer to have the PCC Wellness Community Center midwives to work along with the hospital’s OBGYNs to continue providing care.
The message on the site ends with “As we move forward, please know labor and delivery services at the West Suburban Medical Center will continue uninterrupted with higher quality care than ever before. Come in today for the safe and compassionate care you deserve.”
Cook County Commissioner Tara Stamps said that in December of 2024, she was made aware of the situation by community members that West Suburban made the decision to end its 30-year partnership with the PCC Wellness Community Center midwife services.
Stamps said that Black elected officials communicated with Prasad in December, and that they have not been in communication since. She said in December, there were 75 women scheduled to deliver at West Suburban and when the hospital decided not to continue its relationship with PCC, PCC had to scramble to find other hospitals where those women could deliver. Stamps said that the issue is those women could’ve delivered at West Suburban, but it wouldn’t have been with the nurse midwives and doctors who have been providing their care throughout their pregnancy.
“What we’re experiencing right now at West Suburban is actually happening throughout Cook County. There were upwards of eight labor and delivery departments that have closed at hospitals on the South Side. So, we now have women in one of the richest cities in the world living in Obstetrics deserts, if you will,” Stamps said.
Stamps said her fear is that maternal mortality rates will increase in the areas where the labor and delivery departments have closed because women will not have access to essential prenatal and maternal health services in their communities. She said it will also put a strain on the people who can least afford not to have these kinds of services available – mentally, physically and emotionally.
Stamps said she would have liked to see West Suburban honor their word, by sitting down with Black elected officials and PCC Wellness to develop an agreement that centered the care and concern for women who use the hospital facility. She would also like to see the rights and privileges of the doctors and nurse midwives from PCC Wellness, which was in place for 30 years, be restored at the hospital. She is asking elected officials to come together and demand equitable access to maternal healthcare for women on the West side.
Stamps is asking that people complete the google form at https://bit.ly/WSOCAUSTIN2024 for the next steps and to sign the PCC Wellness Community Center petition: https://tinyurl.com/PCC-Petition .
A statement from a spokesperson for Resilience Healthcare, said, “In order to improve patient care and maintain insurance coverage, West Suburban, like major hospitals across the country, determined residency-trained OBGYNs should run the OBGYN Department. West Suburban invested additional funding to bring in a nationally recognized group of residency-trained OBGYNS. This group of predominantly African American women reflects the population they now serve and will increase department capacity while improving patient outcomes. As was offered to PCC in November and again this week, nurse midwives are welcome to continue delivering babies at the hospital under the supervision of these residency-trained OBGYNs.”
A Resilience Healthcare spokesperson wrote in an email that Prasad received a letter on Oct. 30th from the insurance broker that recommended eliminating deliveries by family physicians and only allowing midwives to deliver under OBGYN supervision in order to be able to secure insurance coverage.
According to Resilience Healthcare, the only path forward is to have the midwives deliver under OBGYN supervision, an offer that was verbally presented to the CMO of PCC, Dr. Paul Luning, which he declined on Nov. 18th. According to a letter, shared with the Citizen Newspaper by Resilience Healthcare, to Alyssa Sianghio, PCC President and CEO, one of the reasons the arrangement could not continue the way it had previously is that “it was made clear to us [Resilience Healthcare] that we would likely not be able to maintain insurance coverage if this arrangement continued.”
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