Community will build a women's health center housing a maternity unit at its $60 million hospital under construction in Warwick Township, hospital executive director Michael Arno said. The hospital will open next spring.

Four months ago, Community officials said they were suspending plans to build the center, due to the aging population and the success of The Women & Babies Hospital of Lancaster General.

Hospital officials said today they re-evaluated their decision, after talking to doctors and patients here.

"We listened to our physicians and patients, and there was an overwhelming feedback that women and families wanted to have a choice in the county,'' Arno said.

Community actually has been out of the maternity business for one year. It stopped delivering babies at the end of last June and moved its services to Lancaster Regional Medical Center.

Then Regional announced in March that it was closing its maternity unit and Community announced it was suspending its plans to build the center adjacent to the new hospital.

Both hospitals are owned by Health Management Associates, a for-profit company based in Naples, Fla.

When Regional shut down its maternity unit in May, that left just two hospitals here that delivered babies: Women & Babies and Ephrata Community Hospital.

Women & Babies attracted a growing share of the maternity market when it opened in June 2000, while births at Community and Regional shrank. Ephrata's births remained fairly steady.

Today, Community officials said they think they can compete with Women & Babies and Ephrata; Community Hospital will be closer Ephrata to when it moves to Warwick Township.

Community's 15,000-square-foot center will feature 16 private rooms, including six labor-delivery-recovery-postpartum rooms; a Level II neonatal intensive care unit; and 10 other rooms, as well as a room for Caesarean sections.

Women will undergo gynecological surgery in the main hospital, which will connect to the center by a hallway at the operating rooms.

Community's maternity center will be about the same size as Ephrata's, which has six labor-delivery-recovery rooms but does not offer a NICU. It will be smaller than Women & Babies, which has 14 LDR rooms and a Level III NICU, which offers a higher level of intensive care to newborns.

Arno noted the free-standing model of women's health care, as offered by Women & Babies, "has been a great success both here in the county and throughout the country. It's now the standard for women's health care in the country.''

Now Community will offer its own version of that type of care, he said.

"We're in a unique position to raise the bar and set a new standard that clearly will address the community need that women and families have in the county,'' Arno said. "We'll be able to combine convenience and personal service with safety...the building will be physically connected to the hospital so (patients) have immediate access to a state-of-the-art, full-service hospital with an intensive care unit.''

That observation is an apparent reference to the fact that Lancaster General's Women & Babies does not offer an ICU for women. Women who suffer complications from childbirth or surgery are transported to the main LGH facility in Lancaster.

Lancaster General Hospital spokesman John Lines declined comment today about Community's plans. He did note that Women & Babies offers a special care unit for women with high-risk pregnancies.

Joanne Eshelman, Ephrata's spokeswoman, said, "Ephrata Community Hospital continues to offer personalized maternity care to women in northern Lancaster County.''

She said the hospital's maternity unit was renovated and expanded in 1999, to offer the kinds of services that women are requesting.

Arno will focus on recruiting local obstetrician//gynecologists to the center but also said he would consider recruiting physicians from outside the county if necessary.

"I've had OB doctors call me from elsewhere in the state and country and convey an interest in the center,'' he said.

Community also will market its services directly to women through an advertising campaign that will include billboards and television ads, said spokeswoman Diane Bomberger. blog comments powered by Disqus