Nurses in Hemet picketed outside the Hemet Global Medical Center on Thursday to protest the closure of hospital's obstetrics division. They say the closure will have a negative impact on women in the area.
KPC Health, which owns Hemet Global Medical Center, announced last summer that obstetrics services would be cut at the end of October due to business concerns.
The federal Health Resources and Services Administration has designated Hemet as a medically underserved population. That means Hemet has too few primary care providers, high infant mortality, high poverty, or a high elderly population.
Ginny Packham, a nurse at Hemet Global Medical Center, says they serve a lot of high-risk patients.
“We have a lot of patients who just receive no prenatal care at all. Lot of times they come to the hospital, their blood pressures are very high. They've had diabetes during the pregnancy, so their babies are large, they need a C-section," said Packham.
She worries those patients won't get the care they need when the unit closes. The nearest hospital with an obstetrics department is about a 45 minute drive from Hemet.
"It isn't like you can keep putting off having a baby. It isn't like you have, you know, this chronic condition, and you can put it off for years. Having a baby is coming, and when it comes, it has to be treated," said Packham.
The California Nursing Association, the union that represents more than 300 nurses at Hemet Global Medical Center, said in a press release that more than thirty obstetrics nurses are affected by the closure. According to the press release, those nurses "all have specialized training and certifications in labor and delivery and postpartum care, which is not transferable to working in other hospital units without additional training."
KPC Health did not respond to requests for comment.