Babaamaajimowinan (Telling of news in different places)
Babaamaajimowinan (Telling of news in different places)
Essentia Health's hospital in Fosston is permanently ending the scheduling of baby deliveries, joining with more than 20 other small Minnesota hospitals that stopped offering this service.
Baby deliveries will no longer be scheduled at Essentia Health's hospital in Fosston, Minn., under a plan that will further erode labor and delivery services outside of Minnesota's largest cities.
The northwest Minnesota hospital had hoped to reopen its obstetrical unit after a shortage of trained staff forced it in June 2022 to divert deliveries an hour's drive south to Essentia's hospital in Detroit Lakes. Now that change will be permanent. Recruiting had become challenging at a time when births are declining in the region but pregnancies are more likely to involve risks and complications, according to a written statement provided Friday by Essentia spokesman Anthony Matt.
Pre- and post-delivery care will continue in Fosston even if the deliveries happen elsewhere, the statement said. "This increasingly common model of shared maternity services provides the safest care possible to our moms and newborns."
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