Save Sharon Hospital Emphasizes Importance of Maintaining Local Maternity Services for the Safety of Women and Families*

RELEASE DATE: August 2,  2022

CONTACT: Save Sharon Hospital, savesharonhospital@gmail.com,  www.savesharonhospital.org

SHARON, CT — Nuvance Health’s plan to shut down maternity services at Sharon Hospital will have many drastic effects on the community if it comes to fruition. Save Sharon Hospital, Inc., a non-profit organization created to advocate for maintaining the hospital’s services, finds this will have a large impact on people who can have children and families at large.

The history of this issue dates back to 2018, when the hospital first announced its plan to close maternity services, before quickly reversing its decision and announcing plans to keep maternity open indefinitely.

Then, in September 2021, Nuvance announced a new decision to close Sharon Hospital’s labor and delivery unit, as well as reduce the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and surgical department. This is pending necessary state approval, though, and is also contingent on whether the state will allow these closures in light of a five-year agreement with the Connecticut Office of Health Strategy (OHS) to keep several services, including maternity and the ICU, up and running. The efforts of Save Sharon Hospital and others within the community have worked to ensure that these departments remain open and accessible despite a merger and the pandemic, and that the hospital as a whole gets the support it needs, especially in the face of the virus. In response to letters from the Save Sharon Hospital group and the medical community, on February 3, 2022, OHS opened an official investigation into Nuvance’s compliance at Sharon Hospital with the initial five-year agreement made in April 2019, citing: “Information received from the community and Hospital suggests that key discrepancies persist concerning the Hospital’s compliance…” and that OHS “shall have the power to administer oaths and take testimony related to the matter of investigation.” 

The choice to close the labor and delivery service is concerning in part because of what this would entail for people who can have children, especially in a rural community where people would have to travel 45-60 minutes for maternal services if labor and delivery closed at Sharon Hospital. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, maternal mortality rates have increased in recent years, with the total rate in the U.S. rising from 17.4 per 100,000 live births in 2018 to 23.8 per 100,000 live births in 2020. Research released by The Commonwealth Fund on April 5, 2022, made clear that the United States maternal mortality rate is the highest when compared to other high-income countries. Furthermore, these rates were notably high, as Dr. Donna L. Hoyert explains, for non-Hispanic Black women and women aged 40 and over. With these sorts of statistics in mind, it is imperative that access to maternity services is strengthened, rather than weakened or revoked completely.

The same applies for the United States infant mortality rate (IMR). According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), the IMR in 2020 was 541.9 infant deaths per 100,000 live births, decreasing just slightly from 2019’s rate of 558.3 per 100,000 live births. In Connecticut specifically, this rate was 4.21 per 1,000 live births in 2020. These numbers can be coupled with maternal pregnancy complications ranking fifth in the CDC’s list of the leading causes of infant death for 2020. Thus, it is all the more vital for Sharon Hospital to maintain and ensure the robustness of its labor and delivery services. For the health and wellbeing of women, children, and families alike, having local access to this life-saving care is essential for the entire community and should not be taken away.