Update Novmeber 2024:

Sharon Hospital's owner, Nuvance Health, has applied to the CT Office of Health Strategy (OHS) to join with Northwell Health, the largest health system in New York State, in an affiliation. We believe this is good news for Sharon Hospital. OHS has scheduled a public hearing for Wednesday, November 6, 2024. Members of the public are encouraged to attend either in person in Hartford or via Zoom. New York State has already approved the affiliation. Save Sharon Hospital has met with Northwell leadership to discuss the state of our hospital and the services at risk. They have detailed their commitment to our hospital and our community in a letter to us, which includes measures to strengthen the maternity unit. You can check out this letter here. We are very encouraged by this response from Northwell. SSH has been granted Limited Intervenor Status at the public hearing. We will be using this platform to encourage OHS to approve the affiliation between Northwell and Nuvance, pending the incorporation of the commitments Northwell has made to us into the Agreed Settlement, so that they can be held accountable. We encourage you to do the same. Please provide either written testimony to OHS or sign up to testify at the hearing via Zoom. 

For oral public comment via Zoom:

• Sign up by Wednesday, Nov 6 at 1pm by emailing Faye Fentis at faye.fentis@ct.gov.

• Log into Zoom with this link and wait your turn to provide public comment. The technical portion of the hearing starts at 9am. Public comment is scheduled to start at 1pm, but may be delayed if the technical portion runs over time. 

• Here is the Zoom login info:

• Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83056467589?pwd=faNthuiDNu9HK04UbTmrs nGDbd0CMj.1

• Meeting ID: 830 5646 7589

• Passcode: 124210

• Dial in: +1 (305) 224-1968

For written public comment:

• Email your statement to CONComment@ct.gov by Wednesday, November 13, 2024. Written comments are important. OHS reads and considers each statement when coming to a final decision. Put “Docket 24-32717-CON” in the subject line. Here is a template letter to OHS:

Template letter to OHS:

November 5, 2024

Deidre Gifford, MD, MPH

Executive Director

Connecticut Office of Health Strategy

PO Box 340308

450 Capitol Ave, MS #51OHS

Hartford, CT 06134-0308

Re: Public comment for 24-32717-CON

Dear Dr. Gifford,

I live in (insert your town), CT. I am writing to express my support for the affiliation between Northwell Health and Nuvance Health, provided that you please incorporate into the Agreed Settlement the promises that Northwell Health made to Save Sharon Hospital (SSH) in the letter dated October 22, 2024, which is attached as Exhibit A to SSH’s Petition to Intervene. The letter can also be found online here.

Sincerely,

(Your name here)

_________________________________________________

Update August 2024:

Nuvance is planning to enter an affiliation with Northwell Health. The two entities have created an Agreement of Assurances with CT Attorney General William Tong and NY Attorney General Letitia James, which includes a promise to maintain Labor and Delivery services at Sharon Hospital for a period of five years! Here is the portion of the letter pertaining to maternity:

“Preservation, strengthening and expansion of women’s health services, including maternity and Labor & Delivery services, at Sharon Hospital consistent with clinical judgment and a safe, evidence-based care model for the Term of this agreement, a period of five (5) years after the closing of the Proposed Affiliation, to allow for the provisioning of prenatal and postpartum services locally in western Connecticut. In furtherance of this objective, the Combined Entity will take meaningful steps to recruit providers to Sharon Hospital.”

You can check out their full agreement here.

Updates March 2024:

Nuvance continues to create conditions at Sharon Hospital that are intended to lead to the closure of its Maternity Unit, in violation of the Ct. Office of Health Strategy’s Final Decision, issued on February 5, 2024, which ordered Nuvance to keep the Maternity Unit open.

Nuvance has caused pediatric coverage, which is needed to support the Maternity Unit, to be almost impossible to maintain. However, this would be an easy problem for Nuvance to solve, if they wanted to. Instead of cutting pediatrician compensation, causing them to leave Sharon Hospital, it could resume compensation at its prior rate or better yet increase it to match that of other Connecticut hospitals.

The matter is urgent, and the time to act is now. Nuvance must not be permitted to degrade Sharon Hospital’s Maternity Unit. Please contact our local, state, and federal representatives to demand that Nuvance’s destructive behavior be stopped. Click on the public officials below to contact them.

Ct. Gov. Ned Lamont

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal

U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes

Ct. OHS Director Dr. Deidre Gifford

Ct. Attorney General William Tong

Ct. Comptroller Sean Scanlon

Ct. State Sen. Stephen Harding

Ct. State Rep. Maria Horn

Updates February 2024 (most recent listed first):

1) On February 28, 2024, Nuvance announced that it was planning a merger with New York-based Northwell Health. Save Sharon Hospital is concerned about what a merger with Northwell would mean for our community and for the future of Sharon Hospital, and we may file to intervene in the Office of Health Strategy Certificate of Need process to obtain assurances that healthcare in the Northwest Corner will be protected. We appreciate Northwell’s public statement that “Northwell will make significant investments in Nuvance Health, helping it continue to evolve as a high-quality and comprehensive health care system." We are hopeful this means that Northwell would change Nuvance's current course and be supportive of a thriving labor and delivery unit at Sharon Hospital, as well as keeping other vital services in our community.

2) On February 20, 2024, Nuvance filed a Petition for Reconsideration of its application to close maternity to the Office of Health Strategy.

3) On February 5, 2024, the Connecticut Office of Health Strategy (OHS) announced its Final Decision DENYING Nuvance Health's application to close the maternity unit at Sharon Hospital. In other words, WE WON! Maternity must stay open! We are so grateful to OHS for recognizing the importance of supporting the people served by community hospitals.

With this ruling, pregnant people can be assured that when they present to Sharon Hospital in labor or with an obstetrical emergency, they will be treated by an obstetrician with years of training and experience, and not by an emergency medicine physician who by definition does not have years of specialty training in obstetrics.

With this ruling, our community's pregnant people will not have to travel long distances, in potentially inclement weather, to access safe, high-quality birthing services. Instead, they can continue to find state-of-the-art birthing facilities at our local hospital!

With this ruling, Sharon Hospital must maintain on-call pediatricians and anesthesiologists, as well as surgical facilities. Without a maternity unit, those services are in peril for all patients. 

We are hopeful that Nuvance will follow the OHS ruling and support maternity to the fullest. It does have the option to appeal the decision to the Superior Court of Connecticut, but Save Sharon Hospital will continue to advocate for protecting rural maternal health in our community. We are eager and willing to work with Nuvance to spread the word that maternity is open.

Thank you to everyone in our community who helped achieve this win, especially our generous donors who covered our legal expenses so we could oppose Nuvance’s application to state regulators. We are also grateful for our local, state, and federal elected officials for their steadfast support. They stated loud and clear that maternity services must be kept local. This is not just a win for our community, but for rural hospitals across the nation!

You can read the OHS final decision here.