Legacy Health reaffirmed its plans Friday to close the maternity department at Mount Hood Medical Center just before midnight — despite warnings from state regulators that the closure would violate the terms of the Gresham hospital’s operating license.
The Oregon Nurses Association, a union whose members include staff at the birth center, planned a candlelight vigil Friday evening as the closure approached. It expected elected officials and others opposed to the closure to attend.
The Legacy hospital chain says it doesn’t have the staff to keep the Mount Hood birth center open as of Saturday morning, and that it would divert patients in labor to its Randall Children’s Hospital in Portland, 17 miles away, or other hospitals in the region.
Many of the Mount Hood facility’s practitioners have already left, either in anticipation of the closure or earlier, as Legacy considered proposals to reorganize the department.
Legacy Mount Hood had asked the state earlier this month to amend the conditions of its hospital license, waiving the requirement that hospitals offer maternity care alongside general medical and surgical care.
The Oregon Health Authority, though, said it hadn’t approved the waiver as of Friday. It had asked for more information that Legacy had not yet provided.
The state agency said it would take “appropriate regulatory actions” if the hospital suspended maternity services before the waiver is granted. Officials did not respond to questions about what actions might be taken.
The plan to close the birth center has drawn fierce criticism from elected officials, including the Multnomah County and Oregon lawmakers representing districts in the eastern part of the county served by the hospital.
They said it would force parents-to-be to drive much father for birthing care, and that some emergency cases would require transport to another hospital via ambulance or helicopter, adding to the financial burden of the region’s low-income and under-insured residents.
Legacy says Mount Hood Medical Center has 700 to 1,000 births a year, which it characterized as the smallest among hospitals of its type in the region. It had sought to find a new care model that would lower its costs but said those efforts had gone nowhere.
The hospital chain also said it had explored hiring more doctors, including temporary doctors, to fill its ranks, but that it couldn’t keep the center open because of their cost and availability.
— Elliot Njus; enjus@oregonian.com
