(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — A move by West Suburban Medical Center to stop allowing midwives and family care doctors to deliver babies at the Oak Park hospital has some West Side leaders pushing to change it.
Cook County Commissioner Tara Stamps says limiting access to only OBGYNs will exacerbate a problem.
“Black women are nearly three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than whites, so that closing units like this further worsens the crisis.”
She called the move a “grave loss” for West Side women, who are often Black and brown.
“The hospital that they have come to depend on, particularly for women's reproductive health care, is in a very tenuous, unstable situation.”
She says in their discussions with PCC Wellness, whose midwives have delivered babies for some 30 years, West Suburban cited insurance costs.
“They’re blaming the money, as they often do in a capitalist situation, but they are trying to balance it on the people that can least afford it.”
West Suburban has said it has offered midwives the chance to work alongside OBGYNs. Commissioner Stamps wants the agreement in writing - and the two sides to resume talking.
Stamps and County Clerk Monica Gordon are encouraging people to sign a petition opposing what they see as an abrupt decision that will leave hundreds of women unable to deliver at their preferred hospital.
WBBM Newsradio has reached out to West Suburban, whose leaders have said they offered PCC midwives the chance to work with their OBGYNs to give a higher quality of care.
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