Maternity wards in New York have been vanishing since at least 2008, a concerning trend that deserves more attention. While factors such as a declining birth rate and hospital economics may partially explain the closures, the situation is not that simple. State legislators and policymakers should not accept the dwindling availability of local maternity services as inevitable. Unfortunately, these closures have largely gone unnoticed by the public.
The Capital Region’s residents are already familiar with this trend. In 2020, Albany Medical Center closed the maternity ward at Columbia Memorial Hospital, redirecting births to Albany Medical Center Hospital, which is over 45 minutes away from Hudson. More recently, St. Peter’s Health Partners announced the planned closure of Burdett Birth Center at Samaritan Hospital in Troy, the sole facility of its kind in Rensselaer County.
According to the Times Union’s Rachel Silberstein, there have been 27 additional closures or announcements of shutdowns within the state over the past 15 years, spanning from Long Island and western New York to the North Country and various other locations.
These closures are creating maternal health care deserts in rural areas and come alongside other troubling signs for women and babies. Despite declining birth rates in New York and the United States overall, pre-term births in New York have been increasing, from 8.85 per thousand in 2014 to 9.69 in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Maternal death rates in the U.S. have also been rising significantly, from around 20 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020 to almost 33 in 2021. The rate is even higher among Black women, with almost 70 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021.
Hospitals attribute the closures to numbers: as birth rates decline, it becomes increasingly challenging to recruit and financially support obstetricians to staff maternity wards or birthing units in less-populated areas, or even in small cities like Troy.
A new law that came into effect this year requires hospitals to consider how reducing or eliminating a service will impact already-underserved communities when justifying such actions to the state Department of Health. This process is currently underway in the case of Burdett, where expectant mothers would have to travel across the Hudson River to Albany or Schenectady, or north to Saratoga Springs if the closure proceeds.
However, this raises the inevitable question: what is the solution if a hospital claims it cannot afford to keep a maternity ward or birthing unit open?
Mere avenues for complaint may provide some relief but, if that is the extent of the process – and we have yet to see more – it is insufficient. New York must do more. The state needs to find a way to halt the spread of maternal health care deserts and restore services to areas that have lost them. This could require the state to view medical care through a perspective that is often overlooked in this country – considering health care access as a fundamental need, even a human right, rather than simply a business that must remain profitable.
New York has rightly placed considerable emphasis on protecting the choice to seek an abortion as both a right and an integral part of women’s health care. Our leaders must show equal concern for ensuring that women who choose to give birth have safe and easily accessible places to do so. On this matter, there should be no political or ideological divide.
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