Geisinger Community Medical Center completed the first phase of its postpartum care expansion, opening 12 beds Dec. 1 on the hospital’s third floor, Geisinger announced this week.
The service addition comes six years after the hospital opened its Childbirth Center, which brought labor and delivery back to the Scranton facility after previous ownership discontinued services in 2007.
“Growing our postpartum care capability is a critical upgrade for Geisinger Community Medical Center and the Scranton community,” Nick Coleman, associate vice president of clinical operations for Geisinger’s northeast region, said in a news release. “We opened our Childbirth Center in 2019 because we saw the need for more quality labor and delivery services in Lackawanna County. This expansion is another step toward addressing that need. In a community where health care services are challenged and face changes, we remain focused on delivering the best maternity care for mothers and babies.”
Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton completed the first phase of its postpartum care expansion, opening 12 beds on Dec. 1 on the hospital’s third floor. (PHOTOS SUMBITTED BY GEISINGER)
Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton completed the first phase of its postpartum care expansion, opening 12 beds on Dec. 1 on the hospital’s third floor. (PHOTOS SUMBITTED BY GEISINGER)
Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton completed the first phase of its postpartum care expansion, opening 12 beds on Dec. 1 on the hospital’s third floor. (PHOTOS SUMBITTED BY GEISINGER)
Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton completed the first phase of its postpartum care expansion, opening 12 beds on Dec. 1 on the hospital’s third floor. (PHOTOS SUMBITTED BY GEISINGER)
Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton completed the first phase of its postpartum care expansion, opening 12 beds on Dec. 1 on the hospital’s third floor. (PHOTOS SUMBITTED BY GEISINGER)
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Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton completed the first phase of its postpartum care expansion, opening 12 beds on Dec. 1 on the hospital’s third floor. (PHOTOS SUMBITTED BY GEISINGER)
The hospital is also targeting 2026 to begin work on a neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU, part of major investments in the Hill Section facility.
And while the NICU project would be contained within the hospital’s current footprint, Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti’s administration recently proposed and city council narrowly approved zoning changes in the area of GCMC to accommodate a major hospital expansion project that would help address the region’s pronounced health care needs.
On Dec. 2, Geisinger told council of plans to construct a five-story, 75-foot-tall clinical building and parking garage in the 400 block of Colfax Avenue. A bridge over Mulberry Street would connect the “inpatient addition” on the site of the former John J. Audubon School to the existing hospital; while a five-story garage with 400 parking spaces would go next to the addition, closer to Vine Street.
A divided Scranton City Council passed the rezoning last week, with many residents of the Hill Section neighborhood opposed to it. Hospital neighbors prevailed in an earlier zoning battle that played out before council in 2022 and 2023, making the recent zoning change all the more frustrating, some said.
The mayor, who penned an editorial published in a recent edition of The Sunday Times detailing her support for the hospital expansion, noted that GCMC, dating to 1905, is the only trauma center in Lackawanna County. The city must help it and other providers meet growing health care demands of the city and region, she said.
“I have spoken many times in support of giving the Geisinger hospital what they need to be able to maintain and grow their space in Scranton so that we all, not just in Scranton, but in the entire region, can have the entire care that we need,” Cognetti said in the op-ed piece. “This (zoning) amendment isn’t about what’s going to happen in five weeks, or five months or even five years. This is about what will happen in the next 120 years.”
Frustrated neighbors contend the rezoning amounts to giving Geisinger a blank check with no way to ensure it will abide by its concept. They also argued GCMC has grown to dwarf its residential neighborhood and encroach on Nay Aug Park, and that Geisinger should expand elsewhere in the city.
The new postpartum beds are supported by parallel growth of pre- and postoperative care and enhancements to the hospital’s nursery, the health system said. The newly established continuing care nursery is capable of caring for children who need more support than is available in a well-baby nursery, but who don’t need the high-acuity care of a NICU. A second phase of the project will open seven more postpartum beds in the summer of 2026. Upon completion, the unit will more than double Geisinger Community Medical Center’s capacity for postpartum care.
This latest renovation at the Scranton hospital is part of Geisinger’s recent and ongoing $50 million investment in Lackawanna County health care, which includes plans to build the NICU and expand emergency medicine next year, according to Geisinger.