Centra Southside Community Hospital (CSCH) will discontinue its labor and delivery services in December as part of a consolidation of women\u2019s health care with Centra\u2019s Lynchburg facilities, citing nationwide shortages of obstetricians and declining birth rates that have made it increasingly difficult to sustain the service locally.<\/p>\n
Hospital Vice President and Chief Executive Officer Thomas Angelo said the decision, while difficult, was driven by persistent staffing shortages and the need to ensure patients receive consistent, safe care.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had OB recruitment challenges for some time now, where we get staffed and then somebody leaves,\u201d Angelo said. \u201cBut these shortages are not unique to Centra.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to national data Angelo shared, 537 hospitals stopped delivering babies between 2010 and 2022, and more than 100 rural hospitals have ended delivery services since 2020.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy 2030, there will be a shortage of 5,000 OB doctors nationally,\u201d he said. \u201cThat will balloon to 9,900 by 2037. We expect by 2035, the supply shortage is expected to meet only about 82% of the demand nationally. And that just goes back to why this is not unique to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Angelo said local conditions mirror those trends.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen a 25% decline over the last decade in deliveries locally,\u201d he said. \u201cIt isn\u2019t because we\u2019ve lost market share \u2014 it\u2019s really just been a decline in births, like you\u2019re seeing across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2024, Centra Southside delivered fewer than 200 babies, a figure Angelo said underscores the challenge of maintaining round-the-clock obstetric coverage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re only delivering less than one baby a day, there\u2019s a lot of resources that have to go into that,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen somebody leaves, it causes a big hole. And then we\u2019re struggling to figure out \u2014 are these two people gonna cover it.<\/p>\n
These situations often mean the hospital has to find contract doctors, called locums, to fill in until someone is hired. But Angelo said finding those doctors has also become problematic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make sure that if a mother is coming here to birth, and we are telling everybody that we have labor and delivery services, that they can always count on us,\u201d Angelo said. \u201cAnd that has been challenging in the last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the consolidation plan, Centra Southside will no longer deliver babies after Dec. 19, with all labor and delivery services shifting to Centra Virginia Baptist Hospital in Lynchburg.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will not deliver anyone after Dec. 19,\u201d Angelo said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want somebody to deliver on the 19th, right, and then we don\u2019t have providers on the 20th.\u201d<\/p>\n
Angelo said every patient currently receiving prenatal care is being personally contacted to help transfer care to new providers prior to Dec. 19.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are personally calling every patient that\u2019s pregnant currently to let them know the change that\u2019s coming and to assist them with moving their care over to a new provider,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
To help maintain continuity, Angelo said Centra in partnership with Central Virginia Health Services, a federally qualified health clinic located across the street from the hospital, will expand prenatal services there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe already put midwives in that clinic.That helps with some of this prenatal care,\u201d Angelo said. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna bolster that up and actually add another day where we have midwife coverage a third day of the week there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those midwives are part of Centra\u2019s team that also serves Lynchburg, allowing patients to see the same providers during prenatal visits and at delivery.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s good about the midwives seeing these patients and the federally qualified health clinic is they\u2019re Centra midwives,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re the same midwives that deliver babies in Lynchburg at Centra Virginia Baptist Hospital. So there\u2019ll be some continuity of care there.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to labor and delivery, gynecological services provided through Centra Medical Group\u2019s Farmville office will also be consolidated with the Lynchburg practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat office is the office that we\u2019re gonna consolidate with the Lynchburg practice,\u201d Angelo said. \u201cWe are working with the doctors currently. They may want to provide some care locally and in Lynchburg. We\u2019re still working through that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The decision on whether some gynecological care can remain in Farmville is expected within the next week.<\/p>\n
As for employees, Angelo said the hospital\u2019s goal is to find positions for all affected staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is to find a different job, a like job for all of them,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re working on that currently.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said Centra has openings locally and in Lynchburg and will work with each employee to ensure a smooth transition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have contracted nurses here, and they can slip into those roles if they wish,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s jobs in Lynchburg too, if they wanted to apply for one of those.\u201d<\/p>\n
For emergency cases involving pregnancies, Angelo said Centra Southside\u2019s emergency department is trained to stabilize and care for mothers until transfer, if necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone that comes in, we do medical screening and determine where they\u2019re at in their pregnancy,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it\u2019s imminent, we would deliver them in the staffed area and then we would transfer them to the healthcare institution of their choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Angelo acknowledged the emotional weight of the decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe care about our folks, and we care about the community and our patients very much, and this was a difficult and hard decision,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll continue to try to work on the best transition plan possible to where patients have continuity of care, and we can move our employees into like jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Centra spokeswoman Emelyn Gwynn emphasized that the change does not indicate Centra Southside is closing. The hospital recently broke ground on an emergency department expansion and continues to invest in local inpatient and surgical services.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur ER is busy every day, and so is our inpatient side,\u201d Angelo said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been full most days for the last few months, and we\u2019re the only healthcare institution for an hour in any direction. We\u2019re gonna continue to take care of our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is just an unfortunate step in time and what we had to do for all the reasons I\u2019ve already cited,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to do the things that will continue to help you grow and take care of your community, and that\u2019s what we want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Centra Southside Community Hospital (CSCH) will discontinue its labor and delivery services in December as part of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":{"0":"post-273804","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}