By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
St. Francis Medical Center-West will end maternity services by March 31.
Though the move will affect hundreds of Leeward O‘ahu residents, the number of residents needing service had been declining along with the birthrate for the entire island.
Maggie Jarrett, the hospital’s associate vice president, said the declining birthrate led to the decision to close the maternity ward after 10 years of service.
Since 1990, obstetrical admissions on O‘ahu have declined 24 percent, Jarrett said.
Sister Gretchen Gilroy, the hospital’s chief executive officer, said the decision was made with regret.
Maternity services are costly to offer unless provided in volume, Gilroy said. St. Francis West has always lost money in providing its maternity services, but recently the losses have become more extreme.
The St. Francis deliveries dipped from 792 babies in 1994 to 482 last year.
Declining reimbursements by Medicaid, state services and insurance companies also influenced the decision, Gilroy said.
Closing down the maternity department does not leave prospective West O‘ahu mothers without options, she said.
Wahiawa General Hospital provides maternity care. Some prospective mothers have always traveled to the Queen’s Medical Center or Kapi‘olani Medical Center for Women & Children, both of which are downtown.
Jarrett said the downtown hospitals have traditionally attracted the "larger market share" in maternity services.
Westside obstetrician Dr. Cheryl Leialoha said she always directs her patients to Kapi‘olani, and few have complained.
"I just feel comfortable with that hospital, with the level of care" she said. "In the past three years, I’ve had maybe five patients who really wanted to deliver at St. Francis."
Obstetrician Richard Oh said about half of his Leeward patients have chosen Kapi‘olani, while the other half have preferred to go to St. Francis. But Oh said it was comforting, even for those who preferred Kapi‘olani, to have St. Francis West as a nearby option, just in case.
Birthrates aside, Oh said he thought new housing construction in the west-central and Leeward areas will eventually make it necessary for the communities in those areas to reassess the need for maternity care.
Lower Medicaid and private insurance payments have had an impact on health-care providers in Hawai‘i, Oh said, adding that he could understand how St. Francis West is calling a halt to shifting money from one segment of hospital services to another that continued to lose money year after year.
"I think Sister Gretchen (Gilroy) tried to stick with it, to the very last penny," he said.
Jarrett said other segments of services at the hospital are not operating at a loss. The hospital’s patient census has been up and holding steady. "When people are admitted from the emergency room, they sometimes have to wait several hours while we find a bed for them," Jarrett said.
The hospital plans to use beds once used for pregnant and post-partum women as beds for general medical and surgical patients.
"There is more of a need for that in the west community," Jarrett said.
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