MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Va. – LewisGale Hospital Montgomery will temporarily suspend labor and delivery services effective April 1, 2024, according to a hospital spokesperson.
Officials said the decision was made, in part, due to staffing limitations, stating that “recruiting full-time OB/GYNs to LewisGale Hospital Montgomery has been challenging in recent years.”
Patients have been advised to deliver their babies at LewisGale Medical Center in Salem, which delivers 1,200 babies each year.
As we’ve reported previously, the center recently opened a $2.5 million NICU. It provides care for medically fragile, premature infants and full-term newborns with infections, breathing difficulties, growth restrictions and maternal health concerns.
“LewisGale Medical Center is ready to support LewisGale Hospital Montgomery’s obstetric patients with the highest-quality labor and delivery care,” a hospital spokesperson told 10 News. “While we will no longer deliver babies at LewisGale Hospital Montgomery, patients can receive gynecological care, as well as pre-and-postnatal care, at LewisGale Physicians.”
But the shortage isn’t just impacting our region.
“There’s more pressures to see more people, to do more things, to take care of more complicated patients, with sometimes less and less resources to be able to do that because of the financial challenges medicine has seen particularly post-Covid,” President of the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society Dr. Ronald Alvarez said.
Alvarez tells 10 News there are several factors impacting the shortage.
“It’s getting more and more challenging to recruit people to these more rural areas,” he said.
The Dobbs decision, overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022 was just one of those factors.
“People that do go into the profession, particularly physicians or M.D. graduates are choosing not to train in states where there are more restrictive laws,” he said.
He said across the board, they’re trying to draw more people to the profession.
“In spite of the challenges, it’s been a rewarding career to be able to provide for a lot of patients in need,” he said.