Expectant mothers in Medina County can no longer plan to give birth close to home.
Cleveland Clinic is consolidating its labor and delivery services at its three hub hospitals — Akron General, Fairview and Hillcrest.
Medina Hospital’s birthing center will close at the end of June.
Akron General and Fairview are closest to Medina city. Each is about a 35-minute drive when traffic flow is normal and roads are dry.
The Cleveland Clinic said about 65 percent of expectant mothers in Medina County are now leaving to deliver their babies at hospitals with high-level neonatal intensive care units (NICUs).
Fifteen years ago, about 1,100 babies were born at Medina’s hospital. In 2016, that number dropped to 833, a Cleveland Clinic spokesman said.
In 2016, the hospital system said 4,953 babies were born at Fairview, 2,828 babies were born at Akron General and 4,342 were born at Hillcrest, which is in the eastern Cuyahoga County suburbs.
“Focusing services allows us to provide the highest level of care for mothers and babies,” the Cleveland Clinic said in a statement. “And having the highest level of NICU in close proximity is an advantage for families.”
The change rattled the psyche of many in Medina County accustomed to giving birth closer to home.
Expectant mother Erin Marenoski, 31, of York Township, received the news in a personal phone call from her doctor Thursday morning.
Marenoski delivered both of her daughters, ages 3 and 2, at Medina Hospital, and was planing to deliver her third child there. She’s due July 17.
She said she’s not sure yet where she’ll deliver her third baby. A drive to an Akron hospital could take 45 minutes from her home.
“Where we’re located, it will have a big impact on our entire family,” she said. “We have two little ones. All of our family is in Medina.”
Marenoski said Medina Hospital’s birthing center is “like home.” She’s comfortable there and knows the nurses.
Her doctor lives in Wadsworth, so each time she went into labor, he was there right away. “The hospital itself was fantastic,” she said. “I have nothing but amazing things to say about them. ... The birthing center is beautiful. I had my own suite. …I could deliver in the same room I was staying in. It was almost like a hotel room. My husband had all the space for him to feel comfortable staying there. He stayed with me the entire time.”
The closure is going to affect the entire Medina community, she said.
“Having [the center] right here has been a blessing,” Marenoski said. “It’s going to really undermine Medina as a city and a hospital. Taking away something this huge, where are moms going to go?”
Medina hospital opened in 1944, adding a maternity ward in 1960. Since then, the once-rural farmland, has become an enclave of bedroom communities serving both Akron and Cleveland.
More than 170,000 people live in the county, concentrated in Medina, Brunswick and Wadsworth.
Until recently, hospitals in Medina and Wadsworth competed to lure pregnant women to their birthing services.
But Summa Health eliminated Wadsworth-Rittman Medical Center’s maternity ward, along with most hospital services that required an overnight stay, after purchasing the hospital in 2008 for $1.
That prompted the Wadsworth-Rittman Area Joint Township Hospital District to sue. In February, Summa and the joint district reached a legal settlement could, among other things, clear a path for a full-service community hospital’s return to Wadsworth.
Under the agreement, the hospital district has 18 months to find a group to operate its campus as an inpatient, acute-care hospital. If the district makes a deal, Summa will transfer ownership of the buildings to the hospital district at that time.
At the time, the hospital district was optimistic it could find a group to restore the hospital’s services.
When that could happen — and whether birthing services would return — is unclear.
Amanda Garrett can be reached at 330-996-3725 or agarrett@thebeaconjournal.com. Monica Thomas can be reached at 330-996-3827 or mthomas@thebeaconjournal.com