Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Cleburne | Image by Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Cleburne/Webpage
A North Texas hospital is planning to stop providing birth services, but some local residents are protesting the decision.
Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Cleburne, located about 32 miles south of Fort Worth, announced it would end delivery services on Aug. 30 at 5 p.m.
“After careful consideration, low birth volumes led to this decision, but we will continue to provide gynecologic care and surgery at our hospital,” said Kimberly Walton, director of media relations and issues management for Texas Health.
L&D employees were notified of the closure earlier this month, and Texas Health will work with them to find other positions within the hospital system.
“We will also be reaching out to expectant mothers who are planning to give birth at Texas Health Cleburne to offer them extra support,” Walton added.
“And of course, Texas Health Cleburne will continue to care for pregnant women who need emergency treatment,” the hospital said on its webpage.
News that the only L&D unit for miles would be closing down upset some local residents, including Betty Smith, who started a petition protesting company officials’ decision.
“This not only impacts Johnson County, but other surrounding counties as well, because all of the hospital options that are left are quite far away from most of these small towns around Cleburne,” Smith said on the petition website. “This has a huge impact on not only the community, but also on the staff at Texas Health Cleburne L&D.”
“This is a critical resource that has been taken away, and we need to let it be known that this poor decision will have a significant impact on the growing population of Johnson County,” Smith added.
The petition has so far garnered over 1,598 signatures since it was launched on July 11.
Brandi Gregg spoke to the Dallas Express about her concerns about losing those services and her special connection to Cleburne Hospital’s Ann Marty Schmidt Women’s and Infant Services department, who was Gregg’s mother.
Gregg told DX that Schmidt has been an obstetrician-gynecologist in Cleburne for many years and has been an advocate for quality health care for women in the rural areas surrounding Johnson County.
After her death in 1999, friends, community members and family, including Greg’s father, donated funds to the hospital building in Schmidt’s name, helping to ensure the hospital would become a premier facility for women to deliver their babies.
“This hospital is known for its delivery room, that’s why people go to Cleburne Hospital,” Gregg said, “Without this unit, women and babies would die. They don’t always have the extra 20 to 35 minutes to go to another hospital.”
Greg added that his children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews were born at the facility.
“It would be a disastrous resource if it were removed. There are thousands of new homes being built in the area. Who are the people buying the new homes? Families. Who are the people that are going to need maternity services? The families that are going to be moving into these homes,” Gregg said.
“Also, the nurses here are exceptional,” she told DX. “I’m really disgusted. I hope and pray that this campaign to keep the obstetrics and delivery unit open will bring attention and that those in charge will consider that its closure is a major health concern for women in our area.”
Ashley Blythe, one of the local residents who signed the petition, explained that the doctors and staff at the delivery room saved her life when she faced a serious bleeding emergency while pregnant with her second son.
“If this maternity unit was not here I would have died on the way to another hospital with my unborn son. My GP is in Mansfield but I would never have been able to get there,” Ms Brice wrote in the petition. “It is important that this unit remains open as it could mean the difference between life and death for other women and their unborn babies.”
With the closure of the Cleburne L&D unit, the next closest option for many Johnson County mothers will be Texas Health Hospital in Mansfield, about 25 miles northeast of Cleburne.
“Every woman has the right to appropriate antenatal care within a reasonable time of her home – can you imagine what would happen if the birthing room was more than 45 minutes away?,” AJ Gifford commented on the petition. “A ‘textbook’ birth is rarely a reality and paramedics and emergency medical staff are busier than ever trying to get mothers and babies safely into the world or to a birthing facility.”
The Dallas Express reached out to Walton for a response to comments from community members, but she did not respond by publication deadline.
