Another Iowa Health Clinic in Council Bluffs Announces Reduced Services Amid a String of Health Clinic Closures Across the State in the Last Year
Daily Nonpareil: “CHI Health Mercy Council Bluffs Ending Labor, Delivery Services at Hospital”
Daily Nonpareil: “Rural Patients, Especially Those with Higher Risk Pregnancies Who Were Already Commuting to a Larger Center Such as CHI Health Mercy, Will Likely Need to Add More Time to Their Commute in Omaha”
DES MOINES – According to a new report from the Daily Nonpareil, CHI Health Mercy Council Bluffs will end labor and delivery services at its hospital because of provider shortages.
Since Ashley Hinson’s vote for the biggest cuts to Medicaid in history a year ago, health clinics across Iowa have been closing or ending services, leaving many without a nearby clinic to see a doctor.
Now, healthcare leaders in Iowa are warning that “there has been a major decline in the number of hospitals that provide labor and delivery services, most often in rural areas” as Iowa’s “severe” OBGYN crisis, due in part to Iowa’s Hinson-backed six-week abortion ban, makes it difficult for Iowa women to get the care they need.
“Over the last year, Ashley Hinson’s votes have accelerated clinic closures and the ending of services at hospitals across Iowa,” said Iowa Democratic Party spokesperson Drew Myers. “The Iowans traveling farther for vital care will remember come November that they have Hinson to blame.”
Missed the report? See below for key highlights:
Daily Nonpareil: CHI Health Mercy Council Bluffs ending labor, delivery services at hospital
- CHI Health Mercy Council Bluffs will soon end its labor and delivery services.
- Bailey Nielsen, CHI Health communications manager, confirmed to The Nonpareil Wednesday that local services would be transferred to CHI Health birth centers in Omaha effective Aug. 31.
- In June, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen released a report that said Medicaid spending cuts put 446 hospitals at risk of closing or reducing services.
- The report named three hospitals in Iowa as at risk of closing, including CHI Health Mercy in Council Bluffs […]
- In April, an event hosted by the Council Bluffs Area Chamber of Commerce offered insight into the healthcare system and some of the challenges Council Bluffs’ hospitals face.
- “There will be a time, I’m the most positive, where it will be hard to argue for, and for us to get capital, to continue doing projects, to continue making our facilities better, if our community doesn’t grow along with us,” Burd said in April.
- “Over the last 20 years in Iowa, there has been a major decline in the number of hospitals that provide labor and delivery services, most often in rural areas,” Cass Health in Atlantic said in a 2023 statement.
- Rural patients, especially those with higher risk pregnancies who were already commuting to a larger regional center such as CHI Health Mercy, will likely need to add more time to their commute in Omaha — though many may be traveling to there for maternity care now as well.
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