![]() They told OPB they have to work with subpar equipment and that they don’t have enough sick leave and aren’t fairly paid. Nurses on the picket line Monday morning complained that the hospital has put profits ahead of both its patients and its staff. “I’m on the picket line because I think we’re very undervalued and the hospital just does not respect us enough to give us a good and fair contract for how much we’ve sacrificed in the past couple years,” Anderson said.Īnother sign read, “I’d rather be nursing, but this is important.” And a third: “Do better, Providence.” Maternity nurse Erin Anderson held a Taylor Swift-inspired sign that said “Providence, now we’ve got bad blood.” Just after 7 a.m., about 100 nurses stood in front of the hospital holding signs and cheering in response to supportive honks from morning commuters. In both cases, the company said it made more sense to consolidate birthing services at its other regional hospital.Ī rally to support Providence midwives is planned for Sunday at the hospital’s Alternative Birthing Center.Some nurses were asked to leave the Portland hospital at 4:30 a.m., according to the nurses union’s Twitter account. In just the past year, the health system announced that it would end maternity care at Ascension Macomb-Oakland in Warren, and at Ascension River District in East China Township. Parents want evidence-based, respectful care, and Ascension is eliminating a great option to receive that.”Īscension has also made recent moves to reduce or eliminate maternity care at some of its Michigan hospitals, part of a larger national trend. “One of the great things about midwives is they tend to provide very personalized care, and that's definitely much less available when you have obstetricians who are seeing many, many more clients,” English said. English said that as of now, she’s only aware of one midwife operating at Borgess. Last year, Ascension announced that it would cut its midwife staff at Kalamazoo’s Borgess Hospital. She said that while some hospitals have been expanding midwifery programs due to burgeoning demand, Ascension is cutting back. “Ascension is taking us backward,” said Jessica English, a doula and birth educator based in Kalamazoo. According to a statement provided to WXYZ-TV, the health system said that any patients who want to use a private certified nurse-midwife can do so, so long as the midwife has admitting privileges at Providence. And it's of course very shortsighted.”Īscension told existing patients that it will help them transfer to another health facility if they want a midwife birth. “But you're not going to fire the physicians because you need the physicians, so you fire the midwives. “Whereas midwives will spend more time during the pregnancy and during the birth in the patients’ rooms and still cost less money. “It’s on that model where physicians can just see as many patients, and they can run from room to room for the births,” she said. ![]() ![]() Zielinski said offloading all births to Providence physicians may make sense from a short-term cost-cutting perspective, but it’s ultimately not a good solution. “But when you're using OB-GYNs for straightforward births, it's a vast overutilization of training,” she said.Īscension did not provide a rationale for its decision, and did not respond to a follow-up request for comment. Zielinski said physicians can be valuable members of a birth team, especially with higher-risk pregnancies. Ruth Zielinski, a certified nurse-midwife and University of Michigan nursing professor, said midwives have higher rates of patient satisfaction, lower caesarean section rates, and lower rates of episiotomy and other birth interventions that can raise risks for mothers and babies. They say there’s overwhelming evidence that midwives provide the highest level of patient care, and have better birth outcomes in low-risk pregnancies. The move has outraged Michigan’s midwifery and birthing communities. In a letter to patients dated January 31, Ascension says that all deliveries at Providence will be supervised by “highly qualified obstetric physicians who specialize in low-intervention births.” ![]() Historically, midwives have supervised most of the births there, according to birth workers. A major Metro Detroit hospital has announced that it will no longer keep midwives on staff.Īscension Health says that as of March 1, midwives will no longer staff the Alternative Birthing Center at Providence Southfield Hospital. ![]()
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