Provena closes its baby unit

ELGIN — The doors of the obstetrics unit at Provena Saint Joseph Hospital will officially be shuttered Saturday afternoon, according to hospital officials.

Its last baby was born on Thursday and released from the hospital Friday afternoon, said Heather Gates, spokeswoman for the hospital.

The closing has been in the works for months. In July, Provena began the process of filing a certificate of need application with the Illinois Health Facilities Board for permission to discontinue its obstetrical services.

The request was approved on Oct. 13 by the board, Gates said.

The reason Provena is closing its baby unit — too few patients.

Provena had 310 obstetrics patients in the 12 months ending April 30, 2009, a decrease of 142 patients from the previous year, according to William A. Brown, the president and CEO of the hospital.

That figure continued to plummet after it became known that Provena had intentions to end its obstetrics services, according to Gates.

She said only nurses, not physicians, are affected by the decision.

"They're wonderful caregivers," she said. "They handled this decision with so much grace and professionalism when it happened, any provider would be lucky to have them on staff."

Some of the nurses in the obstetrics unit were moved to other units in the hospital, Gates said.

Others, she said "looked elsewhere for opportunities." Some nurses landed at surrounding hospitals.

As of Friday afternoon, Gates said, no one was fired.

With the obstetrics unit closed, she said, Provena will "focus on clinical areas that have shown a lot of growth." Those include cardiovascular, oncology, surgical, orthopedic, spine and comprehensive rehabilitation services.

Provena officials said the hospital will continue to offer gynecological services. They're developing additional services, such as a specialized Women's Heart Center, digital mammography and High Dose Radiation — an advanced radiation therapy technology for treating breast cancer.

Sherman Hospital of Elgin, which serves about 2,700 obstetrics patients per year, has "the capacity to absorb the patients that would've gone to Provena Saint Joe's," said Dr. Ian Jones, an OB physician and vice president of clinical excellence at Sherman, adding that Provena and Sherman share the majority of their obstetrics doctors.

For more information, visit Provena's Web site at provena.org/saintjoseph.