NYSNA Nurses Fight to Save Maternal Health Services in the North Country
On Wednesday, July 29, NYSNA nurses from across the North Country held a speak-out to save maternal health services at North Star/Claxton-Hepburn Medical Campus. NYSNA members from Claxton-Hepburn, North Star/Carthage Area Hospital, Samaritan Medical Center and Canton-Potsdam Hospital gathered outside the Ogdensburg Free Academy to speak out about the devastating impact the proposed closure would have on their communities and patients across the North Country.
Members of the Ogdensburg Education Association and the International Association of Firefighters Local 1799 as well as State Senator Mark Walczyk, New York State Assembly Member Scott Gray, Deputy Mayor of Ogdensburg Jennifer Stevenson, County Legislator Rita Curran and St. Lawrence County Central Labor Council President Sam Burns joined nurses at the speak-out.
Earlier this month, North Star Health Alliance, the healthcare system that operates Claxton-Hepburn, announced a plan to close maternal health services at the facility. The proposed closure would shutter one of the few birthing centers in St. Lawrence County and came despite North Star receiving millions in emergency stabilization funds from the New York State Department of Health.
Making Nurses Voices Heard
After the speak-out, nurses attended North Star’s public hearing on the closure, where they spoke again about the impact on patients and the dangers of closing the only birthing center between Potsdam and Watertown.
Amber Palmer, RN, a maternity nurse at Claxton-Hepburn, said: “We deliver care to a lot of high-risk patients. The population as a whole is getting less healthy and having more complications in pregnancies. Two of our frequent populations come in with no prenatal care and no warning: substance use disorder patients, and Amish patients who don’t have cars and rely on their neighbors for transportation. Both of these groups arrive with dire circumstances.”
After decades of disinvestment, hospital consolidation, cuts and closures, North Country nurses are familiar with what happens when services leave their communities. Snow Harper-Moulton, RN, a maternity nurse at Claxton-Hepburn, previously worked at Massena Hospital, which closed its maternity unit in 2020. She said: “I’ve been through this before. I worked in the OB unit that closed at Massena, so I know first-hand that when these services are cut, they generally don’t come back. And I see this as part of a disturbing trend of the North Country losing access to care, and maternal healthcare being cut across the US.”
Nurses from area hospitals also spoke out to raise concerns about their hospitals’' capacity to absorb more maternity patients. Emily Etheridge, RN, a nurse case manager at Samaritan Medical Center in Watertown, said: “If Claxton-Hepburn's maternal health unit closes, pregnant patients in the area will be forced to commute to Samaritan too, and we are not prepared to receive them. Samaritan is the biggest hospital in the area, but we are consistently under-staffed. We already have patients from Watertown that have to travel all the way down to Syracuse for care because we can’t accommodate them.”
Nurses’ actions at the speak-out and public hearing received coverage in NNY360, North Country Now, WWNY 7 News and North Country Public Radio.
What’s Next?
NYSNA nurses from across the North Country are united in the fight to save maternity health services at Claxton-Hepburn. North Country nurses know the difficulties their patients face accessing healthcare and know that closing any services in the region poses a threat to patient care.
The New York State Department of Health must approve North Star’s closure plan, and they are currently collecting comments and reviewing the closure plan. NYSNA is encouraging nurses and patients to submit comments by Aug. 5 to communityfeedback@nshany.org and share our petition widely. Nurses are ready to hold the line in the fight to protect birthing people, mothers, babies, families, and patients in the North Country!