GILROY—Three months after stunning the communities it serves, Saint Louise Regional Hospital has reversed what it described as a cost-saving decision to close its obstetric and pediatric units this summer.
Instead, the units will remain open and will be augmented by restructured childbirth preparation classes to be held at the hospital’s De Paul Urgent Care Conference Center in Morgan Hill, the hospital announced.
In a prepared statement issued by a spokesperson, SLRH Chief Administrative Officer Carol Furgurson indicated part of the reason for the reversal has to do with “negotiating fair rates of reimbursement,” for delivering babies.
Daughter of Charity Health Systems, the parent company of SLRH, has long complained that Santa Clara County controls and pays higher rates to its own hospitals than it does to the Roman Catholic hospital system. Indeed, as the system has been up for sale for more than a year, hospital officials have argued that DCHS would not be losing millions of dollars annually if the county paid the system the same reimbursement rates it pays its own hospitals for the same services.
Furgurson said Tuesday through her spokesperson, Kel Kanady, “Medi-cal Managed Care insurance plans account for approximately 30 percent of our obstetric deliveries. Better reimbursement from these payers will favorably impact the bottom line and help keep these services available to our community. Saint Louise Regional Hospital recently negotiated an equitable agreement with Santa Clara Family Health Plan. We continue to negotiate with Valley Health Plan and hope to reach a fair agreement soon.”
When asked for the old and new reimbursement rates for obstetric deliveries, Saint Louise and DCHS declined to provide the figures.
“Due to stipulations of confidentiality, we are not able to discuss specific contract numbers,” Kanady said in a Tuesday email to the Dispatch.
Ironically, Saint Louise nurse Christine Newberg, one of the harshest critics of plans to close the units, is quoted at length in a Saint Louise press release issued July 10 about the benefits of childbirth education and preparation.
“People are turning to the internet for education, but a class setting provides the opportunity to ask question, practice breathing and focus techniques directly with an instructor, and meet and share experiences with others who also are expecting.”
When Saint Louise and DCHS announced in April plans to save money by closing the Gilroy facility’s obstetric and pediatric units, Newberg was highly critical in comments to the Dispatch.
“Not one single life lost is worth this incredibly irresponsible decision made by a charity hospital which runs the only labor and delivery unit” in the area, she said.
The hospital draws patients from a surrounding population of nearly 200,000 in south Santa Clara and San Benito counties.
