With Ellis Medicine set to initiate cuts at Bellevue Woman’s Center, advocates worry about the state of maternal healthcare in the Capital Region. Members of the New York State Nurses Association held a town hall Wednesday to discuss their concerns.
NYSNA members are up in arms over Ellis Medicine’s decision to initiate cuts at Bellevue Woman’s Center that were originally planned for the end of the year. Cuts now set to take effect August 22nd include moving outpatient surgical services to Schenectady's Ellis Hospital.
Bellevue RN Christine Walters believes the changes are being implemented without proper prior planning. "One unit closes, it affects the other units. What does this snowball effect? What kind of repercussions will there be for Bellevue with this unit closing? We’ve always done a number of surgical services that some people in the public might not even know: eye surgery, foot surgeries, that you wouldn't necessarily think would happen at a woman's hospital. But we, but most importantly, we've done woman surgeries, including mastectomy, breast repair after cancer. We've done all kinds of OBGYN-related surgeries at Bellevue. When we would have a patient present emergency with something like an ectopic pregnancy, which is an emergent situation, we would perform those procedures at Bellevue, those services will no longer be available at Bellevue,” Walters said.
Bellevue will continue performing childbirth deliveries, C-sections and caring for maternity patients, but Catherine Mitchell, with the March of Dimes, told the NYSNA gathering that she fears the surgery changes could be just the first step.
“Will we be back here in a year or two fighting to keep the rest of these essential services available? At March of Dimes. We know exactly where this path can lead. The loss of specific maternal health services, such as the close of obstetric units or loss of service lines, is often the early warning sign of broader hospital shutdowns or reduced access to care,” said Mitchell.
New York state Assemblymember Phil Steck told the gathering Bellevue is far more than a labor issue. “Make no mistake about it, healthcare in the United States has been declining steadily. Due to mergers and due to so called deficiencies, costs have been going up, care has been going down," Steck said. "So I'm very pleased that here in the 110th assembly district, we do have an institution like Bellevue Woman's Hospital that can provide care to expectant mothers and those who have given birth. We don't want to lose that. That is important to medical care for the community and all the other stuff, is just well, it's B.S.”
Ellis defends the changes as "routine operational adjustment."
The cuts at Bellevue come after advocates fought last year to save the region’s other premier maternal healthcare facility -- the Burdett Birth Center in Troy.
Despite that outcome in Troy, Mitchell sees changes in Schenectady as part of a broader worrying trend in maternal healthcare.
“Our 2024 our ‘Nowhere to go’ maternity care desert report found that in just 2021 and 2022, more than 100 hospitals, about 1 in 25, closed completely or lost their obstetric units. As a result, over half of U.S. counties no longer have a hospital with obstetric care,” Mitchell said, noting the report further shows that in 2024 more than 1/3 of U.S. counties were considered maternity care deserts, meaning they had no hospital or birth center offering obstetric services, and no providers such as midwives or family physicians who deliver babies.
NYSNA says 14 Bellvue nurses will be laid off while remaining nurses will be expected to absorb additional responsibilities.
