ThedaCare Medical Center-Waupaca(Photo courtesy ThedaCare)
WAUPACA, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Labor and delivery services at ThedaCare Medical Center-Waupaca will close in February, prompting a petition asking the hospital to reverse the decision.
Froedtert ThedaCare says labor and delivery services will end Feb. 15.
“ThedaCare is committed to providing access to safe, high-quality health care. As our communities change, we must change with them to provide the right level of care at the right place. The needs and demands of expectant mothers are shifting – deliveries have been declining and mothers are choosing to deliver at larger birth centers. The shortage of physicians and nurses in rural areas is an issue being felt across the country, and in our region, as labor and delivery complexity is increasing,” a statement says.
An online petition by employees and community members, with more than 2,400 signatures, seeks a reversal.
“The health care team in Waupaca has provided maternity care for the Waupaca community since before Riverside Hospital was built. We continue to provide high quality respectful care for pregnant people and newborns from around our area. Our team excels in supporting breastfeeding and our breastfeeding rates are the highest in the ThedaCare system. The family medicine physicians that staff our hospital have come from around the country to practice in our community because they love taking care of pregnant people and babies. Obstetrics is the heart of our clinic and of our critical access hospital,” it states.
The petition also mentions the distance to other such services.
“If the labor and delivery unit at ThedaCare Waupaca closes, there will be no hospital providing pregnancy care in a wide swath of central Wisconsin. Our community members will need to drive up to an hour from their homes to receive maternity care. This is more than an inconvenience for our community. Research shows that lack of local maternity care increases rates of maternal and infant death,” it states.
ThedaCare says services will be available elsewhere in the region.
“As an integrated health system with our network of hospitals, physicians will work with expectant mothers to create coordinated labor and delivery plans at the birth center of their choice, including ThedaCare hospitals in Appleton, Berlin, Neenah and Shawano,” the hospital statement says.
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