30 Ways in 30 Days: Obstetric and Neonatal Care

High-risk Infants Face Even More Risk With Budget Cuts

Hundreds of low birth-weight babies and other infants requiring critical care would be placed at a potentially higher risk by the elimination of $5 million in state funding to hospitals for obstetric and neonatal care.

HARRISBURG (June 11, 2009) - Hundreds of infants are born in Pennsylvania every year who require extreme measures to ensure their survival during the first weeks of life. Those high-risk infants need the expert assistance of high-tech neonatal care units that are not found at every hospital.
 
Under Senate Bill 850, hospitals across the state would lose $5 million in state Medical Assistance funds and $6 million in federal funds for obstetric and neonatal services.

Critical care neonatal units are credited with marked reductions in the newborn infant death rate in recent decades.  Even the largest hospitals, though, have limited facilities and, with reduced funding, some advocates and policymakers fear that demand for services will pressure institutions to reduce hospital stays. 

Newborns from uninsured families will not be turned away; rather, the cost of caring for uninsured children who are not covered by Medicaid funding will fall into the hospital's category of "uncompensated care," meaning that health care institutions will be forced to increase the cost of other services to make up for neonatal unit budget shortfalls.
   
"Pennsylvania's hospitals are on the brink, and patients will be the losers as they face reduced access to critical hospital services in their communities," said Carolyn F. Scanlan, the President and CEO of the Hospital & HealthSystem Association of Pennsylvania, in a statement. "Unless Harrisburg policymakers restore these funds, more hospitals will be forced to reduce or close services and terminate staff."

To learn more about this issue, contact Roger H. Baumgarten, Director of Media Relations for the Hospital and HealthSystem Association of Pennsylvania, at 717-561-5342 or by email at rbaumgarten@haponline.org. You can also contact Priscilla Koutsouradis, Director of Public Relations & Media Relations at the Delaware Valley Health Care Council, at 215-575-3743 or by email at priscillak@dvhc.org.

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