Saturday, October 23, 1999
Kenwood hospital will close birth unit
Jewish moving maternity beds to general care
BY TIM BONFIELD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Jewish Hospital in Kenwood will halt its maternity service in about a month, ending a venture that delivered nearly 1,000 babies last year.
Instead, the hospital will use the space for general medical-surgical beds as part of a two-step move administrators hope will relieve a bed crunch triggered by the past two winter flu
seasons.
Jewish Hospital's plans, announced Friday, reflect another piece of a two-year turnaround plan at the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, a group that also includes the Christ, University, St. Luke and Fort Hamilton hospitals.
After losing $88 million on patient services in the past two fiscal years, the Health Alliance is cutting and reorganizing care throughout its system with the goal of breaking even by June 30, 2000 and making net gains by June 30, 2001.
“We really need the med-surge beds,” said Aurora Lambert, senior vice president of Jewish Hospital. “We've had about 60 percent occupancy in obstetrics but in med-surge the occupancy rates have been running 90 to 92 percent.”
Eliminating maternity care at Jewish Hospital will wipe out the Tristate's 12th largest baby service. The Tristate has 20 hospitals with maternity units that delivered more than 30,000 babies in 1998.
The closure will eliminate 38 positions, but the people in those jobs will be offered other jobs in the Health Alliance.
Pregnant women who expected to deliver there will have to consult with their doctors to decide where else to go, Mrs. Lambert said.
Would-be mothers will have several other choices within a few minutes' drive — including Bethesda North, Bethesda Oak, Christ, Good Samaritan and University hospitals.
Meanwhile, opening more medical-surgical beds could be a plus. During the peaks of the past two flu seasons, the emergency departments at Jewish and Bethesda North backed up and the hospitals were forced to divert patients to other facilities. Before that, it had been decades since life squads could recall being turned away on such a frequent basis.
In addition to gaining 19 beds from the maternity switch, Jewish Hospital plans to spend two years rebuilding its sixth floor to add another 25 medical-surgical beds.
After figuring the loss of maternity billing against gains in medical-surgical income, the Health Alliance predicts a $1.5 million gain in annual net revenue from the switch.
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