Milwaukee Council Votes To Urge Hospital To Reverse Closing Of Labor, Delivery Unit

By Erik Gunn, Wisconsin Examiner

April 20, 2023

By a unanimous vote, the Milwaukee Common Council urged a hospital on the city’s South Side Tuesday to “reconsider” the closure of its labor and delivery unit at the end of 2022. The resolution followed a campaign by the union representing nurses and other health care employees at Ascension St. Francis Hospital against closing the unit.

“The elimination of labor and delivery services at St. Francis leaves no labor and delivery care facility on Milwaukee’s South Side, and will force patients, many of whom are immigrant Spanish speakers and other people of color, and their families to travel further to obtain necessary healthcare services,” the resolution passed by the council states.

St. Francis is part of Ascension, a Catholic-affiliated, nonprofit nationwide chain based in St. Louis. At the time it closed its labor and delivery unit in September, the corporate parent said those services would move to two affiliated hospitals: Columbia-St. Mary’s on Milwaukee’s East Side and St. Joseph on the city’s North Side. The union that represents St. Francis employees, the Wisconsin Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, noted that St. Joseph itself was the subject of a successful campaign five years ago that curtailed a plan to reduce services there.

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