The high Senate Democrat on well being care financing expressed assist Tuesday for altering the foundations round state-licensed hospital closures and provided to achieve out to the top of UMass Memorial Health Care to debate the closure of a birthing heart in Leominster.
More than 40 hospitals or well being care models have closed in Massachusetts since 2009, in line with the most important nurses union within the state. State regulation is “failing to meet this moment of crisis” for sufferers and caregivers, the Massachusetts Nurses Association stated, which is backing a invoice on Beacon Hill that will put extra guidelines in place for hospitals seeking to shut their doorways.
Sen. Cindy Friedman, the Senate chair of the Health Care Financing Committee, stated she thinks it’s “very important and reasonable” to grasp what was behind the choice to shut the Leominster birthing heart, which is run by the UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital.
And Friedman stated she helps altering the best way the state handles dedication of want, or the legal guidelines and laws governing substantial modifications in companies at well being care amenities. The Arlington Democrat stated she is going to have a look at the payments backed by the nurses affiliation “to see if they actually will do what we want them to do.”
“It is definitely clear that we need to fix this,” Friedman instructed the Herald after a multi-hour listening to on the State House. “We have to fix it because I don’t believe that our determination of need process reflects what’s happening in healthcare today, and we need to update it.”
UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital introduced final month it deliberate to shut its maternity unit in Leominster on Sept. 22 due to “industry-wide workforce challenges” which have made it troublesome to totally employees the ward, hospital president Steve Roach stated.
Roach stated UMass offered discover to the Department of Public Health and “all appropriate parties” as required beneath state regulation. Patients can proceed to obtain obstetrics care and ship throughout the UMass Memorial Health Center at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester.
“This was an especially difficult decision for our health system, as our compassionate caregivers have helped thousands of parents and families navigate the birthing journey and welcome new loved ones into their lives for so many decades,” Roach stated in an announcement.
The determination to shut the birthing heart has sparked an outcry from native lawmakers, neighborhood members, and nurses who work on the hospital.
Amy Gagnon has labored as a nurse on the birthing heart in Leominster for greater than 12 years and stated she is “outraged” by the plan to shut an important service within the space. Over the previous 10 years, 10 maternity models have closed in Massachusetts, she stated.
“This closure, if allowed to go through, will have a devastating impact on the families in my community, particularly economically disadvantaged residents who lack the ability to travel long distances to receive care in Worcester,” she instructed lawmakers Tuesday. “It may imply moms will probably be delivering in our already busy emergency room, which doesn’t have the suitable employees, abilities, or assets to supply the care these moms and infants want.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association desires lawmakers to advance laws from Sen. Julian Cyr and Rep. Ed Coppinger that will lengthen from six months to at least one yr the official discover interval Department of Public Health licensed hospitals want to present the state earlier than a closure or discontinuation of well being companies.
The further discover time offers communities extra time to weigh in on potential closures and the results it could have on healthcare service in a municipality, stated Rep. Jonathan Zlotnik, a Democrat from Gardner.
Six months will not be sufficient time for communities to hunt out state assets, set up, make counterarguments, collect knowledge, or put together for different outcomes, he stated.
“That’s why this bill is so important, because, again, anyone who’s been through this knows how critical that time is in terms of addressing these issues and trying to save these services in our community,” he stated.
A Department of Public Health spokesperson didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The proposal directs the legal professional basic to hunt an injunction to maintain “essential health service[s]” operating throughout the discover interval. It would additionally require hospitals proposing a closure or discontinuation of companies to supply “evidence of having given notice” to affected municipalities, in line with the invoice textual content.
The invoice additionally bars hospitals from making use of for a license or increasing for 3 years from when well being companies are discontinued or a facility is closed. And the laws prohibits closure of beds, models or amenities throughout a declared state of emergency pertaining to well being care just like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Peter McConarty, a household physician who has labored in Fitchburg for 38 years, together with on the UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital, stated the choice to shut the maternity ward in Leominster with solely 4 months’ discover is “inhumane, at best.”
“That’s less than the duration of a pregnancy,” he instructed lawmakers. “I mean, my goodness, that means that people in the middle of their pregnancies are going to be trying to figure out where they’re going to go to safely have their baby.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”