Commissioner Ted Mercer called the loss of maternity services in the county “disheartening.”
“One of our goals has always been to have young families stay in Miami County and also recruit new families to come into Miami County. It is unfortunate … our county grew by 6,000 people in the last census. Other counties around us did not. We are a vibrant community,” Mercer said. “To have a vibrant community you have to have good quality of life, good schools, good infrastructure and comprehensive health care. It hits home with families when maternity services are not available when we have two major health care providers in our county.”
The commissioners said they had heard concerns from residents about the decision. Commissioner Wade Westfall recalled the consolidation of the county’s three hospitals into one in the late 1990s. Recalling the turmoil caused across the county, he said the new countywide facility was sold with “always somewhat of a promise that we would maintain a full service” hospital.
Among questions he frequently has been hearing is how Shelby County with around 48,000 people and Darke County with around 36,000 can have maternity units, when Miami County with 108,000 population cannot.
UVMC announced in January that it would stop offering a maternity unit at the hospital located between Troy and Piqua at the end of February. Harland on Thursday called the decision “gut wrenching.” Later in the discussion, he said the service might return down the road, depending on availability of providers, among other factors.
In talking about the closing, he pointed to the departure of providers during the past 18 months and the inability of Premier Health to attract others.
“All physicians are difficult recruitments right now, but OB (obstetrics) is right at the top. We have found OB/gyns don’t want to come to smaller communities. They want to go to larger cities.” There they can be on call maybe every 10 weeks while in smaller communities, the on-call week comes much sooner, Harlan said.
In addition to lack of providers, UVMC in 2023 recorded 325 births when only a few years ago there were twice that number, he said.
In response to the question about maternity units operating successfully in smaller neighboring counties, Harlan said the hospitals — Wayne in Greenville and Wilson in Sidney — " are in a nice ‘bubble/pocket’ service line” but pointed out that provider turnover has been experienced in those areas as well.
Near the end of the meeting, Mercer said he hopes Premier Health some day can reverse the decision to close UVMC’s maternity unit. Harlan said the hospital would be open to reopening the service in coming years “if something changes materially, if providers come our way … we could reconsider.”
Before the discussion with commissioners, Harlan provided an update on services at UVMC, saying 2023 was a very busy year.
Contact this contributing writer at nancykburr@aol.com
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