TROY, N.Y. — Like many residents of this aging industrial city on the Hudson River, Starletta Washington was stunned when she heard Troy's last remaining hospital planned to close its birthing center. "It was devastating," said Washington, who heads the local YWCA. Washington was born at the hospital and had her children there.
She couldn't believe families would now have to get to a hospital half an hour away or face the prospect of an emergency delivery. "Nobody else was going to be born in the city of Troy unless they were born on a city bus, in the back of a cab, or, disgustingly, on the side of the street?" Washington said. "Blew my mind." For stories on the science of healthy living, subscribe to NPR's Health newsletter.
Troy wasn't the first community to face this prospect. Since 2010, hospitals have closed hundreds of maternity units as cities and towns shrink and hospitals consolidate into larger systems. Elected officials from both major parties joined patient advocates, mothers, midwives, doulas and community leaders like Washington to challenge Trinity Health, the large Catholic health system that owns Troy's hospital and birthing center.
The campaign even united Planned Parenthood and the Catholic diocese. "Whether you were Republican or Democrat, or if you didn't vote, it literally brought everyone together," said Carmella Mantello, the city's Republican mayor. "Everyone just said, 'We can't let this happen.'" Throughout the country, healthcare remains a flash point as politicians square off ahead of November's elections.
But in many places, Americans are also quietly finding common ground. In this small city, citizens were brought together by frustration over large, corporate health systems that can seem to put profits over patients. And they resolved to work together to keep critical medical services in their community.
Babies have been delivered at Samaritan Hospital on a hill above Troy since this city's once bustling factories produced most of America's shirt collars a century ago. More recently, Samaritan's Burdett Birth Center had become a model for patient-focused care. Midwives and doulas work alongside OB-GYNs and support mothers who want to avoid a delivery by cesarean section unless necessary.
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