The LewisGale hospital in Blacksburg will stop delivering babies as of April 1. The closure is part of a national trend, as fewer families have access to birthing services, particularly in rural areas.
According to a statement from LewisGale hospital, they made the decision to close their Labor and Delivery unit in Montgomery County because it’s increasingly difficult to recruit full-time physicians. The hospital said the closure could be temporary.
Staffing challenges have led other hospitals across Virginia to discontinue maternity care in recent years, said Julian Walker, a spokesperson with the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association.
“Heath care recruiting and retention is a challenge in many communities, but particularly in rural communities,” Walker said.
The longer a woman travels to receive maternity care increases the risk of her dying in childbirth, and babies are also at a higher risk of serious health effects, according to the nonprofit March of Dimes. The group said from 2018, they’ve seen an increasing number of maternity care deserts across the country, areas where women must travel over thirty minutes to give birth. A study last year by March of Dimes identifies 10 counties in southwest Virginia as maternity care deserts.
Montgomery County is not considered a maternity care desert, even with the closure of the LewisGale birthing unit in Blacksburg. 20 minutes from Blacksburg, Carillion has a hospital near Radford that offers maternity care. And LewisGale’s Salem Medical Center has a birthing unit, as well as a neonatal intensive care unit that opened last November, but that’s a drive of about 45 minutes from Blacksburg.
In addition to staffing challenges, Walker said another reason some hospitals are finding it challenging to keep labor and delivery units open is because Medicaid reimbursement rates are putting extra strain on many hospitals.
“The challenge with Medicaid as a program is that it reimburses healthcare providers at an amount below the actual cost of care,” Walker said.
In rural areas across Virginia, 59 percent of women live over 30 minutes from a birthing hospital compared to 12.6 percent of women living in urban areas, according to a report by March of Dimes.
