{"id":2056,"date":"2016-02-23T07:51:39","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T12:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/?p=2056"},"modified":"2016-02-23T07:51:39","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T12:51:39","slug":"as-rural-hospitals-struggle-some-opt-to-close-labor-and-delivery-units","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/?p=2056","title":{"rendered":"As Rural Hospitals Struggle, Some Opt To Close Labor And Delivery Units"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(By &#8211; Michelle Andrews, Kaiser Health News)<\/p>\n<p>A few years ago, when a young woman delivered her baby at Alleghany Memorial Hospital in Sparta, North Carolina, it was in the middle of a Valentine\u2019s Day ice storm and the mountain roads\u00a0out of town were impassable. The delivery was routine, but the baby girl\u00a0had trouble breathing because her lungs weren\u2019t fully developed. Dr. Maureen Murphy, the family physician who delivered her that night, stayed in touch with the neonatal intensive care unit at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, a 90-minute drive away, to consult on treatment for the infant.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was kind of scary for a while,\u201d Murphy remembered. But with Murphy and two other family physicians trained in obstetrics as well as experienced nurses staffing the 25-bed hospital\u2019s labor and delivery unit, the situation was manageable, and both mother and baby were fine. <a href=\"http:\/\/khn.org\/news\/as-rural-hospitals-struggle-some-opt-to-close-labor-and-delivery-units\/?utm_campaign=KHN%3A+First+Edition&amp;utm_source=hs_email&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=26530002&amp;_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8M3YJ_qqLs01KaFhEo2pVY4acdJ-p-Lg2C7ObWoPLpXvJS35hUXo_Qdo6GAjrpThCZAdwAj0DB6oq1wnj67gCFBechTQ&amp;_hsmi=26530002\" target=\"_blank\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Kaiser Health News\u00a0is\u00a0a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/khn-logo1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-899 \" src=\"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/khn-logo1-300x156.png\" alt=\"khn-logo1\" width=\"92\" height=\"48\" srcset=\"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/khn-logo1-300x156.png 300w, https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/khn-logo1-1024x533.png 1024w, https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/khn-logo1-390x205.png 390w, https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/khn-logo1.png 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 92px) 100vw, 92px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<pre><strong>Notice<\/strong>: The link provided above connects readers to the full content of the posted article. The URL (internet address) for this link is valid on the posted date; medicarereport.org cannot guarantee the duration of the link\u2019s validity. Also, the opinions expressed in these postings are the viewpoints of the original source and are not explicitly endorsed by AMAC, Inc.; the AMAC Foundation, Inc.; or medicarereport.org.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(By &#8211; Michelle Andrews, Kaiser Health News) A few years ago, when a young woman delivered her baby at Alleghany<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-care-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2056"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2057,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056\/revisions\/2057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}