Front Page of the Portland Press Herald- OB Unit closes. On Monday this SDA Hospital will cease being an independent SDA Institution and will merge into Central Maine Medical Center out of Lewiston, sources have told me. Over one third of their staff physicians were Loma Linda Graduates and more than half have SDA heritage. Founded in 1959, the institution was a quintessential SDA Medical provider on a quiet wooded lot in Brunswick, Maine which is bordered by the Brunswick SDA Church, an assisted Living Center and the Northern New England Conference retirement village.
This is the last of four SDA hospitals in New England to close and officially ends the medical work of the SDA Church in the New England / Atlantic Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. Beech Hill Substance ABuse Rehab Center of Harrisville, NH
built at cost of over $35MM was sold nearly twenty years ago and is now closed.
Fuller Memorial, an Adventist psychiatric Hospital in Attleboro, Ma was closed nearly a decade ago and the New England Memorial Hospital went bankrupt in 1999 with nearly $60MM of Longterm and short-term debt and was the source of ongoing litigation for years as adversarial claims were brought by providers and secured lenders against the hospital directors in an effort to reach the pockets of the Atlantic Union. New England Memorial was on a site actually selected by Ellen G. White. John Harvey Kellog frequented the institution as a visiting professor and surgeon. When it closed its doors, the SDA Church lost the New England Sanitarium Church and the Greater Boston Academy, which the purchasing developer leveled and transferred to a landfill.
Parkview Memorial has struggled for years and has had legal battles with OB staff that was originally part of Parkview and left to go to work for Brunswick General Hospital, now known as Midcoast, some years ago, takiing a large part of the patient population with them.
Where is our Adventist Hospital and Medical work headed???
A new life marks an end for Parkview
Officials blame the departures of obstetricians, an aging population and the pending base closure.
By DENNIS HOEY, Staff Writer
March 1, 2008
John Ewing/Staff Photographer
David and Christina Clark, with their newborn daughter, Carolyn Grace, leave Parkview Adventist Medical Center in Brunswick on Thursday. She is the last baby to be born at the hospital, which closed its maternity unit on Friday.
BRUNSWICK — The days when lullabies were played over the public address system to announce the arrival of a new baby are over.
Friday marked the end of an era at Parkview Adventist Medical Center, which closed its maternity ward at 5 p.m., amid reports that the hospital could soon see a change in ownership.
Officials at the Brunswick hospital cited the departures of three obstetricians, an aging local population and the pending closure of the Brunswick Naval Air Station as the chief reasons for closing the maternity unit. Since the hospital opened in 1959, more than 23,000 babies have been born at Parkview, on outer Maine Street.
"It's a sad time for us," said Sherri Day-Cienski, director of women's services. "And it's really been hard on the parents. They've come up here to say goodbye."
Parkview's administration and board of directors announced in early February that they would close the hospital's maternity program at the end of the month.
Sheryl S. McWilliams, Parkview's vice president, said closing the maternity unit has no connection to an announcement regarding future ownership of the hospital.
McWilliams said a press conference on that topic will be held Monday morning. She declined to provide additional details.
In a letter to the community, Ted Lewis, Parkview's president and chief executive officer, said two of the three obstetricians who left the hospital last year took jobs at Mid Coast Hosptial in Brunswick -- Parkview's chief competitor -- leading to a loss of patients.
That combined with an aging population and the expected 2011 closure of the nearby Navy base -- a facility that generates about 25 percent of the maternity ward's business -- convinced officials to close the unit.
Parkview, which allows physicians, nurses and staff to pray with patients, is one of four faith-based hospitals in Maine.
"We'll still be doing everything from cradle to grave, except delivering babies," said McWilliams. "Parkview is here not just to stay, but to grow."
In the meantime, however, the 19 nurses and staff assigned to the maternity unit will need to find other jobs.
Those familiar with the services provided by Parkview's maternity unit over the last five decades say the region is losing a program that has touched thousands of lives.
Dr. Alice Cunningham delivered more than 5,000 babies during her career at the hospital. She is retired and living in Brunswick.
"It's very sad," Cunningham said. "I don't want to think about it. But I guess that's life, and life goes on."
All four of Kristin Yeaton's children were born at Parkview. Silas, Oceana, Josiah and Isabelle range in age from 16 months to 8 years old. Her husband Ben, 37, was also born at Parkview.
The Phippsburg family would do it again. Yeaton said she enjoyed the lullabies that were played every time a child was born.
"I like the spiritual part to the hospital. You feel that God's hand is everywhere," she said.
Victoria Emde of Topsham has been a patient at Parkview's maternity ward twice in the past six years.
Her daughters, Ella and Madeline, 2 and 6, were born there and her husband, Jeff, spent the night both times in a chair that folds down into a bed.
"It's going to be a big loss for this community," Emde said.
According to records kept by Parkview, Elaine Joy Laigle was the first baby born at Parkview. Her birth date was July 13, 1959.
Carolyn Grace Clark became part of hospital history on Tuesday as the last baby born at Parkview.
The newborn, with tiny tufts of dark brown hair and rosy cheeks, left the hospital Thursday afternoon with her parents, Christina and David Clark of Lisbon, after they were treated to the ward's traditional celebration of life meal.
Clark, a Navy flight engineer at Brunswick Naval Air Station, is among those servicemen who will be leaving the area as the base begins to move its squadrons to Jacksonville, Fla.
Christina Clark said she asked for her labor to be induced Sunday night because she did not want to give birth at another hospital.
Parkview's birthing rooms, which feature rocking chairs, curtains and wallpaper, were too inviting.
"I loved that Parkview was small and charming. We found that Mid Coast Hospital was more up-to-date with all the new technology, but it didn't have that human touch that Parkview does," Christina Clark said. "This feels like home."
Staff Writer Dennis Hoey can be reached at 386-0320 or at:
dhoey@pressherald.com
Copyright © 2008 Blethen Maine Newspapers
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Topic: Parkview Memorial- Last SDA Hospital In NE to Merge with Central Maine MC (Read 28462 times)
