PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Darcy Dreyer, Director of March of Dimes, on Hospital Consolidation and Maternity Care
3:48:45
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125 sec
Darcy Dreyer, Director of March of Dimes, testified about the impact of hospital consolidations on maternity care in New York City. She highlighted the closure of maternity services in hospitals, particularly in urban areas, and its negative effects on pregnant people, especially in communities of color.
- March of Dimes produces a biennial report on maternity care deserts
- The closure of Beth Israel Medical Center's maternity service in 2018 led to overcrowding and chaos in other hospitals
- There is a disparity in maternity bed availability across NYC, with Queens having significantly fewer beds per capita
Darcy Dreyer
3:48:45
Good evening.
3:48:46
Thank you to the counsel for holding this important discussion.
3:48:50
The wake up hospital consolidations across the nation state and in and in New York City has meant that some hospitals have closed entirely, while others have shuttered their maternity services.
3:49:00
In fact, maternity is often the very first service to close when a hospital is struggling financially.
3:49:06
March of Dimes creates every other year a public health data report on maternity care deserts.
3:49:11
National attention to the creation of maternity care deserts has tended to focus on rural areas where pregnant people have no OB providers and no hospitals with OB services, but their closures of maternity services also harm pregnant people in urban areas such as New York City.
3:49:29
When Beth Israel Medical Center in Lower Manhattan closed its maternity service in 2018, pregnant people had to scramble to find a place to deliver their babies.
3:49:38
Some of them reported overcrowding and chaotic conditions at other hospitals' maternity services that were trying to absorb the caseload displaced from Beth Israel, and we know that our communities of color are having much worse outcomes, smoke infant and maternal health outcomes.
3:49:54
A recent community survey of people in Lower Manhattan who have used Beth Israel asked which services they were most upset that the hospital had closed.
3:50:02
One of the topic answers was maternity.
3:50:04
1 Lower Manhattan Couple reported they were now going to deliver their baby way up town at New York Presbyterian on a 168th Street.
3:50:11
While that is still in the same borough, it is a trip that can take up to an hour.
3:50:15
Depending on traffic or mass transit delays.
3:50:17
And if you've ever been in labor, an hour is a very long time.
3:50:23
Citywide, there are point 17 maternity beds for one thousand people, but in Queens, that number drops to point 12.
3:50:30
That undoubtedly means there's overcrowding on hospital maternity services and challenges and ensuring that people can deliver babies in safe supportive environments.
3:50:38
I urge you to support the passage of the Litchville, which would ensure that the potential impact of closing of maternity service or the entire hospital would receive strengthened state oversight and continued time expires.
