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UPDATE, 5 p.m.:
Mad River Community Hospital issued the following press release:
The management of Mad River Community Hospital has made the difficult decision to discontinue obstetric care in October 2024. In the meantime, MRCH will continue to provide obstetric care (L&D) for planned and unplanned births. The discontinuance of L&D services will not impact Gynecological services outside of labor and delivery surgery, such as hysterectomies, laparoscopies and tubal ligations, services that MRCH will continue to offer.
”“This is one of the most difficult decisions I have made during my tenure as CEO,” said Douglas Shaw. “For many years, Mad River was the leading L&D provider for Humboldt County. However, over the last four years, numbers have declined so much that we are averaging fewer than 25 births per month. We used to average over 60 births per month, which was necessary to fund the service offering. At our current volume, the L&D offering has suffered a seven-figure annual loss for the past several years. When the volume decline is combined with inadequate and stagnant Medi-Cal reimbursement rates, unfunded earthquake safety requirements, and other significant rural health care challenges, continuing the L&D service will jeopardize the hospital’s continued viability in the community. We are working with local hospitals and clinical providers to facilitate the absorption of our L&D volume.”
Mad River Community Hospital will focus on providing additional essential services to the community. These services include:
- Inpatient and outpatient psychiatric services, including groundbreaking for a crisis stabilization unit in partnership with Humboldt County and Cal Poly Humboldt
- Reopening of home health services
- Additional specialty services in partnership with regional health systems.
“We are excited to offer additional services to the community as each of the services listed above will help fill a gap in our local healthcare system,” said Chief Nursing Officer Melissa Long. “Psychological-medical, cardiology and urology services are desperately needed in Humboldt County.”
“We are working with our L&D staff to redeploy them to other areas of the hospital,” Long said. “We have a lot of talented people who can be deployed to other key departments of the hospital as we continue to grow.”
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Original post:
Mad River Community Hospital announced at a staff meeting today that its Trillium Birth Center will close its doors after the first week of October, according to several employees.
With the closure of Mad River’s maternity unit, St. Joseph Hospital remains the only remaining birthing center in Humboldt County. Redwood Memorial Hospital in Fortuna closed its obstetrics program in 2021, citing declining birth rates and operational challenges, including difficulties recruiting and retaining physicians and support staff for women’s services.
“Very bad news for our community,” said one nurse who asked not to be identified by email. “St. Joe’s will not be able to accommodate all the births. It will, but it is not good.”
The impending closure of Trillium Birth Center fits a nationwide trend described as a crisis in rural obstetric care, with more than half of rural hospitals in the United States now lacking maternity units.
“Experts and other stakeholders said it is difficult for hospitals in rural areas to recruit and retain maternity health providers,” the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported in 2022, adding that “a higher share of rural patients rely on Medicaid, which does not fully cover obstetric services.”
Two sources report that the Mad River Community Hospital Birthing Center will close on or after October 6. outpost has reached out to hospital administration to request more information. We will update this post as soon as we know more.
