DELAWARE — Since OhioHealth announced on June 10 that it would close Grady Memorial Hospital’s inpatient maternity unit on July 31, the road to closure has been a long one.
The decision sparked community rallies, a City Council resolution, legal analyses to the Ohio Attorney General and, most recently, calls to the U.S. Department of Justice to consider the closure as part of its ongoing review of OhioHealth.
Despite those efforts, the inpatient maternity unit is scheduled to close at midnight tonight.
But many of those who fought to stop it say their work is far from over.
Rick Lucas, president of the Ohio Nurses Association, said the unit closing on Friday does not “mark the end of this conversation or this fight.”
“This closure was not inevitable. It was the result of corporate decisions and misplaced priorities — not a lack of need,” he said. “OhioHealth made commitments to this community, and allowing those commitments to be broken without meaningful accountability puts every Ohio community at risk.
“If this can happen in Delaware County, it can happen anywhere.”
To the nurses, families, faith leaders, elected officials and community members who fought to save Grady’s services, Lucas said they deserved better.
“They deserved a healthcare system that honors its commitments and puts patients ahead of corporate priorities,” he said.
Lucas said ONA will continue demanding accountability from OhioHealth and policymakers alike, and advocating for policies that protect access to maternity care across Ohio.
“Healthcare is a human right, and corporate executives should not get to decide which ZIP codes are worthy of access to essential healthcare services,” he said.
Response from the Attorney General
Much of the effort centered on a 2005 affiliation agreement between OhioHealth and Grady Memorial Hospital, which opponents argued obligated OhioHealth to maintain labor and delivery services.
However, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office said Thursday it does not have the legal authority to enforce the affiliation agreement.
Deputy Attorney General Erik Clark said Ohio law does not give the Attorney General authority to enforce post-closing contractual obligations contained in affiliation agreements between healthcare entities and community organizations.
Delaware City Councilwoman Linsey Griffith authored a resolution that called upon the Attorney General’s office to uphold the agreement. Delaware City Council unanimously approved the measure during its June 22 meeting.
“It is our elected leaders’ duty to ensure that adequate healthcare is just as available as residential and commercial development, and our policy should be that it is just as well incentivized by the city and county,” Griffith said.
“If they don’t, this will affect our health and our economy long term.”
The councilwoman also pointed to other services around prenatal and postpartum care that are taking a hit as the unit’s closure draws near.
“Last week [OhioHealth] permanently reassigned the lactation consultant to Dublin — leaving an entire county without insurance covered lactation services,” she said.
“OhioHealth stated that the ER is ready and able to care for mothers and newborns. We learned Tuesday that instead of providing Neonatal Resuscitation Protocol (NRP) training to the ER nurses, OhioHealth decided NRP training is no longer needed for ER doctors.”
Griffith added that after Friday, “there will be no one at Grady qualified to resuscitate newborns” and that Grady’s ER doctors and nurses aren’t certified in pediatric advanced life support either.
“There were at least two shifts this month where the ER was staffed with just one nurse and one doctor scheduled for an entire shift,” Griffith said.
“These policies and procedures are in direct opposition with American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations and the Emergency Nurses Association standards and best practices.”
To put it plainly, Griffith said that Grady is not only unfit to handle birth emergencies but that OhioHealth is also understaffing the hospital “at unsafe levels.”
Like Lucas, Griffith sees the situation as OhioHealth creating not only a maternity care desert, but an overall emergency care desert, and wants others to weigh in.
“Every single Delaware County resident should also file a comment with the U.S. Department of Justice in the antitrust settlement for OhioHealth,” she said.
Conflicting commitments
Jonathan Lewis, who served as legal counsel to Grady Memorial Hospital when the 2005 affiliation agreement was negotiated and signed, has argued throughout the debate that the agreement obligates OhioHealth to maintain labor and delivery services.
Lewis said OhioHealth was entrusted with Grady “based upon specific commitments concerning the continuation and maintenance of essential hospital services, including labor and delivery.”
In his view, closing the inpatient maternity unit conflicts with those commitments.
“Ultimately, this case raises a larger question for communities throughout Ohio: Do the commitments made by large hospital systems when they acquire community hospitals still matter years later, after memories have faded and circumstances have changed?” Lewis said.
Dr. Thomas Hubbell, a former Grady board member and chief of staff at the hospital said he hasn’t heard from the AG’s office about his specific complaint yet.
But when/if he does, “that will determine what’s next,” Hubbell said. He declined to comment further on the Attorney General’s decision until he hears back from them.
Amy Acton weighs in
The community’s reaction to the planned closure got so loud that Democratic candidate for governor Dr. Amy Acton attended and spoke at community rally on July 9 that once again called upon the AG’s office to intervene.
Delaware Source reached out to the Acton campaign and asked if Acton had heard from the AG’s office, and whether Acton had any thoughts about this evening’s closure.
“As a mom, doctor and public health expert, Dr. Acton is laser-focused on lowering healthcare costs and protecting and expanding access to healthcare, especially maternity care. As governor, she will fight to ensure that every Ohioan, no matter where they live, has access to the healthcare they need,” Addie Bullock, spokeswoman for the Acton campaign, said.
