New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital in Inwood relaunched its midwifery program last week following outrage from community members, unionized nurses and elected officials.
The new program, now run by Columbia University Irving Medical Center, will aim to expand and improve midwifery services at the hospital, health system spokeswoman Angela Karafazli said. Because Columbia and Allen are overseen by the same chair, chief of obstetrics, Karafazli said, the program will be able to provide more consistent inpatient care and improve outpatient care access for New Yorkers. A team of midwives affiliated with Columbia and its obstetrics program are working alongside doctors, nurse practitioners and nurses and have already delivered babies since relaunch on March 4.
The new program will be staffed by six midwives, the same number as the prior program. When asked how that would “expand” services, Karafazli said that the providers aim to extend access to care and improve training. Just two of the original nurses who were working in the program kept their jobs, according to Politico, which was first to report the story. Their replacements are not unionized.
The move comes after elected officials, including state Attorney General Letitia James and community members decried the health system’s plan to shutter, citing health disparities in the area, which is home to a large population of Black and brown patients.
City data shows that Black women face nine times the risk of dying in childbirth than white women, and more than 80% of the 57 pregnancy-associated deaths that occurred in 2019 were Black and Latina women.
According to the March of Dimes, a national advocacy organization that assesses states’ care disparities, Black New Yorkers are also nearly twice as likely to birth babies before 37 weeks of pregnancy than other groups. Hispanic New Yorkers are 1.3 times more likely to have preterm babies, the organizations’ latest data for New York shows.
In light of these disparities, Karafazli said New York-Presbyterian plans to make additional changes to its midwifery services to reduce disparities. The health system will renovate the labor and delivery space of the hospital, she said, with a multi-million-dollar investment. Construction on the project is expected to begin in 2025.
Additionally, Karafazli said, Columbia is partnering with Allen and community-based organizations as part of its role as a Maternal Health Research of Excellence, a distinction the system recently earned from the National Institutes of Health. The research will focus on lowering pregnancy-related complications and deaths among communities of color. Midwives at Allen can participate in the projects and train midwifery students as well, she added.
Representatives from New York-Presbyterian did not address initial questions as to when they planned to bring midwifery services back to Allen or how they would preserve care after the closure. Additionally, midwives who were part of the program and represented by the New York State Nurses Association said they were caught off-guard by the pending closure. James expressed “profound concern” over the health system’s lack of explanation for the plans and requested New York-Presbyterian provide her with records of the decision-making process, alternatives to closure that executives considered and community impact.
Karafazli said the health system provided James with the requested information in February and called the community perception of the program changes “misinformation.”
New York-Presbyterian has 10 hospital campuses in New York City and Westchester.
Jacqueline Neber , 2024-03-11 09:33:04
Source link