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Area Hospital to Close Birthing Center
No more babies will soon be born at an area hospital, and both the economy and the state not paying its bills are being blamed.

Kewanee Hospital in Henry County has issued a statement indicating they will close their birthing center this summer, because in just the last three years, they've lost $2 million operating it.

Kewanee Hospital Board Chair Gary Pheiffer says they had no other choice they could make without "jeopardizing Kewanee Hospital's ability to serve the community in the future."

The hospital has issued a statement indicating that in the last fiscal year, close to 200 babies were delivered in the center. And of them, they say 73-percent were covered by Medicaid or Public Aid, and that the state only paid roughly 20-cents of every dollar owed under that program.

Plus, the hospital says that the Kewanee area is aging, with only 19-percent of the local population being in the child-bearing age group.

They say people in that section of Henry County having babies will have to go to any of the other hospitals in Galesburg, Peoria, or the Quad Cities in order to give birth, and they say that in larger communities, such a travel time is common.

Hospital officials do not say how many obstetrics-related jobs are being affected by the closure, but they say all are being given the chance to apply elsewhere within the hospital.

Kewanee Hospital just moved into a new facility two years ago.


(Kewanee Hospital. Photo from www.kewaneehospital.com)
04 13 10 by Newsroom
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