An OB Gyn Doctor at St. Luke’s
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Testimony: Prop Q Hearing
on the CPMC proposed closure of the NICU at SLH
San Francisco Health Commission December 4, 2007
My name is Laura Norrell. I have been practicing obstetrics at St. Luke's
Hospital for 13 years.
Our patients require receiving care in their own community and the real
continuity of care that exists at St. Luke’s Hospital. This next downgrade in
newborn services will result in some women receiving care further from their
homes as they are diverted from or transported away from SLH for care that we
were previously routinely providing. While we recognize that we will be able to
provide safe care with these changes, we ask that you stop there. Additional
fragmenting of care with decreased access is not an acceptable alternative to us
as healthcare providers.
Earlier this year we were 5 obstetricians and 12 midwives strong with a practice
blossoming in terms of volume and socioeconomic breadth of patients. Because of
changes made, proposed changes, and the uncertainty of the future, we have lost
1 obstetrician and 4 midwives. An environment now exists in which it is very
challenging to both retain and hire providers to carry on the mission of our
practice. We are doing everything possible to work within our constraints to
continue to provide excellent and safe care. However, with downsizing, we risk
losing more providers, more patients and then losing the whole program.
We have demonstrated our ability to compromise. We stopped performing VBACs
(vaginal birth after cesarean) and our nursery has been downgraded 3 times in 10
years, each time narrowing the level of service offered. We are now at the bare
minimum level of care and resources to protect the health of our community.
We strongly believe that there is a real and urgent need for a vibrant, well
staffed and well equipped community hospital at Cesar Chavez and Valencia. With
CPMC's support our ability to do this should be strengthened, not weakened. As
health care providers, we strive to always improve services, not diminish them.
We ask that CPMC and the SF DPH make a firm commitment to preserve acute care
services in this community and to make no further cuts to women's and children's
services.
CPMC owns us. CPMC pays us. CPMC supports the award-winning care that we provide
and we are so thankful for that. We are proud to be a part of an excellent team.
We are here today pleading with all of you to continue to support this care for
San Franciscans and to keep St Luke's alive.
Dr. Laura Norrell
OB Gyn St. Luke’s Hospital
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