Less Access (Again!) for Women to Deliver Babies in Chicago

I heard last night from my counterpart at a sister community health center in Chicago which uses Lincoln Park Hospital (the former Grant Hospital) as their hospital to deliver babies. The CEO of Lincoln Park had contacted him to say that the hospital was abruptly stopping maternity services effective immediately.

The Chicago Tribune reported on Thursday October 9, 2008 that the hospital was for sale and at risk of closing.

For almost a year, Lincoln Park has been reaching out to community health centers in an attempt to increase maternal services utilization by attracting Medicaid insured women. This is a potential money-maker for community hospitals.

Our sister agency, on a Friday night, had to scramble to find a place to safely deliver their babies. As community health centers, we take care of patients regardless of their ability to pay. As a result, those most affected by this abrupt move are expectant mothers living in poverty and covered by Medicaid.


Over the past year or so several North Side hospitals have limited or closed their maternity services. Weiss Hospital closed its maternity services (with plenty of advance notice), Advocate Illinois Masonic Hospital has no room at the inn for more normal-risk Medicaid deliveries, neither does Swedish Hospital. There is definitely an unhealthy pattern here.

One of the drivers of hospitals getting out of the baby delivering business may be malpractice costs. But that's a whole different subject.

The current situation raises the question: if you are a pregnant woman, living in poverty, on the North Side or Northwest Side of Chicago, and you are insured by Medicaid, where will you go to deliver your baby? Where will your doctor be able to attend to your birth with you?

Because of this very same dilemma, Erie Family Health Center will now start delivering babies at Norwegian American Hospital (moving almost 500 deliveries per year from Advocate Illinois Masonic Hospital). We will continue our long-term relationship with Northwestern’s Prentice Women’s Hospital where we deliver over 1,100 babies per year.  END OF POST. THANK YOU FOR READING.