NORTH SHORE
were the “most profitable.” Steward will not be able to keep its finances a secret in court.
For now, North Shore, Palmetto General, Coral Gables, and Steward’s other Florida hospitals remain open. Doctors are still caring for patients and the emergency rooms remain open.
North Shore leaders declined to be interviewed by the Miami Herald. Pague, the Steward spokeperson, told the Herald in an April email that “there are no plans to reduce any other services” at North Shore.
But the closing of North Shore’s labor and delivery unit — a service that doesn’t bring in a lot of money to hospitals — has left the community grappling with the loss.
Many have flocked to Jackson North Medical Center and the Women’s Hospital at Jackson Memorial’s main Miami campus. Jackson Health has quieted rumors that it’s looking to buy North Shore, but it is ramping up its labor and delivery services to ensure it can meet demand.
Jackson North, 160 NW 170th St, has seen a 15% to 30% increase in patients coming to the center for labor and delivery services since North Shore cut back on care, according to Dr. Marie Sandra Severe, Jackson North’s CEO and senior vice president. Its neonatal intensive care unit is also seeing more babies.
Joanne Ruggiero, CEO and senior vice president of Holtz Children’s Hospital and the Women’s Hospital at Jackson Memorial, says the hospital system has homed in on Black maternal health. For the past several years, Jackson has worked to reduce the medical mistrust that is in South Florida’s Black communities, through outreach efforts and building partnerships with doulas, midwives, birthing centers and other health providers, she said.
“All of our work has really had a focus on disparities of care and making sure that we eliminate them within our hospital and the North Shore closure actually really gave us a chance to test the work that we’re doing and what we’re able to see is that we actually did have the right infrastructure in place” to support more patients, Ruggiero said.
Both Jackson CEOs say their hospitals can care for women through the entire pregnancy, including postpartum, and are looking to expand operations and provide more services. They’re also focusing on natural childbirth to increase birthing options for patients. Ruggiero said all of Jackson’s hospitals are using wireless monitors so expecting moms who want natural childbirth can walk around. Severe says Jackson North is also planning to open an obstetric ER in the next few months, and if all goes well, offer water births at the center by 2025.
Jackson has also partnered with the Southern Birth Justice Network to get doulas into its hospitals to help support expecting parents.
‘BEACON OF LIGHT’
South Florida health providers say the goal is to ensure expecting patients have a variety of birthing options in South Florida, something that proved critical for Marie Gilliam, 37, of Cutler Bay.
“I know the severity of what it means to give birth in America as a Black woman,” Gilliam told the Miami Herald. “You’re not really heard ... so I wanted to make sure that I was in a place surrounded by people who would care for me as a person and want the best outcome for me.”
A bad experience at Jackson South for a spinal injury made her want to give birth at home. The midwives and doulas she found through the Southern Birth Justice Network were a “beacon of light” on her journey, she said.
But two weeks before her due date, Gilliam began to show signs of preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication associated with high blood pressure. Plans changed — and she gave birth in North Shore.
It wasn’t a pleasant experience. Gilliam said she argued with inattentive nurses who didn’t acknowledge she was in labor until 30 minutes before her daughter was born. The doctor didn’t make it to the birth, but showed up shortly after her baby was born.
And then, finally, Gilliam’s dream — to be a mother — came true.
Amarna-Marie Massey was born 12:58 a.m. June 4, weighing 6 pounds and 3 ounces.