Loss of Women’s Pavilion would create a monopoly

Loss of Women’s Pavilion
would create a monopoly

EDITOR:

The ability to choose is valued by all individuals. Individuals make decisions on a daily basis with respect to education, health care, what to eat for dinner, etc.

Choices in the marketplace drive competition. Competition, in turn, drives our economy and ensures that consumers are presented with the best products at the most reasonable cost. When competition is unfairly removed from the marketplace, a monopoly is created. A monopoly may prevent consumers from receiving the best products at the most reasonable cost.

Recently, Akron Children’s Hospital announced its intent to purchase the Beeghly Medical Park, with the exception of Beeghly Oaks Nursing Home, which was previously purchased by a Columbus entity. .

The Beeghly Medical Park houses the Women and Infant’s Pavilion, which is a unique, state-of-the-art facility for women and infants. The Women and Infant’s Pavilion is distinguishable from the other obstetrical facilities in this area. It has a hotel-like setting as opposed to a hospital environment. Despite the hotel setting, the Women and Infant’s Pavilion is equipped to handle both obstetrical and neonatal emergencies.

Having recently delivered at the Women and Infant’s Pavilion, I can assure the experience is extremely different from delivering your baby in a hospital. The option to deliver at the Women and Infant’s Pavilion is currently available to all area residents, despite the patient’s ability to pay for services rendered. Residents of this community should continue to have the option to deliver at a facility that is not housed in a hospital. The birth of a baby is not an illness, but rather, an enjoyable experience that should be performed in a family-friendly environment. This is the exact type of experience the Women and Infant’s Pavilion offers expectant mothers.

Unfortunately, if Akron Children’s Hospital is permitted to purchase the Beeghly Medical Park, the Women and Infant’s Pavilion will close. The closure of the Women and Infant’s Pavilion will force expectant mothers to choose between Northside Medical Center and St. Elizabeth Health Center’s Youngstown facility. Given this option, I believe most mothers (and quite frankly their physicians) will choose St. Elizabeth Health Center’s Youngstown facility.

As you can see, the proposed purchase of Beeghly Medical Park not only creates a monopoly with respect to pediatric care, it indirectly creates a monopoly in obstetrical care. In essence, the unfair closure of the Women and Infant’s Pavilion permits St. Elizabeth Health Center to regain the obstetrical patient base it lost to the Women and Infant’s Pavilion without building a substantially similar facility. Therefore, the close of the Women and Infant’s Pavilion will unfairly remove competition from the marketplace.

If Akron Children’s Hospital is successful in purchasing the Beeghly Medical park, it should permit the Women and Infant’s Pavilion to remain open in its current capacity.

KRISTIE SOSNOWSKI

Boardman

St. E’s staff made his day

EDITOR:

I was recently hospitalized in the Boardman St. Elizabeth Hospital and the staff could not have been more helpful and professional. A spirit of cooperation permeated the institution.

The nurses and their assistants seemed like a band of angels who couldn’t do enough for you.

Specifically it was the personnel of the cardiac unit on the third floor of the hospital that was so supportive of my recovery. Our area is blessed to have this new facility staffed with such competent, friendly personnel

ROBERT E. CASEY

Boardman