Market Power - Rally this Friday - Elected representatives showing up. PeaceHealth still MIA.

Come to the June 7 Rally (Press Release)

Market Power & the Bottom Line

Market research shows that women are the healthcare decision makers for themselves and their families. The power of healthcare decision-making starts with pregnancy. This is just the beginning of their decision making power. For decades more, women will make big decisions, which impact the entire hospital system of care. In other words, where women decide to go matters a great deal to the economic health of hospitals and medical practices. Women in this community, since the 1970s, have made it crystal clear that they intend to go to the freestanding Nurse Midwifery Birth Center.

More than 9200 women and people who respect women's choices in care have signed the petition to communicate this preference to PeaceHealth. Marketing folks, no doubt, understand the economic implications of how taking choice from us – against our will – will affect the bottom line for PeaceHealth and, quite reasonably, Women’s Care, the private medical practice whose disproportionate influence results in PeaceHealth’s erroneous closure plan. PeaceHealth leadership needs to reposition itself so that it may properly turn toward the community. Doing so brings it back into mission-consistent action in line with its status as a non-profit hospital. 

Lane County Friends of the Birth Center continues to make every effort to help re-orient PeaceHealth leaders into meaningful engagement so that concrete plans and commitments can be made to preserve the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center. So far, our efforts have not been fruitful. The last several years have seen significant senior leadership turnover. This, no doubt, contributes to a serious and, so far, persistent case of institutional amnesia. 

Below are details for the community's June 7 rally. Following rally details is a round up description of the federal, state, county, and city elected representatives who are showing up for their constituents. That’s not all. We are also pleased to share the American College of Nurse Midwifery Oregon affiliate's letter to PeaceHealth. Read it here. Donors, too, are reaching out to add their voice in support of #SaveTheNurseMidwiferyBirthCenter. More on this soon.

RALLY to Save the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center

Supporters of the PeaceHealth Nurse Midwifery Birth Center will hold a public rally, organized by Lane County Friends of the Birth Center, near the grounds of PeaceHealth's RiverBend Hospital in Springfield on June 7, 2019 at 4pm. This is truly the community’s birth center with over 9,200 people signing a petition in support of keeping it open. We have invited PeaceHealth Administrators to take this opportunity to receive the petition and to begin hearing firsthand from community members. Details are posted on the Facebook page for the Lane County Friends of the Birth Center.

Supporters are encouraged to make and bring signs highlighting the current and future consumer power every woman represents. Women want the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center and, if this is taken away from them, they will go elsewhere. They will take their families, too. Big signs expressing economic power will make a good visual for PeaceHeath and help it to re-orient toward the engagement needed to maintain the community's beloved Nurse Midwifery Birth Center. 

Lane County Friends of Birth Center's Katharine Gallagher &
Eugene City Councilor Emily Semple in front of the NMBC donor wall 

Elected representatives heed our constituent call

While PeaceHealth leaders are, thus far, unwilling to communicate meaningfully with Lane County Friends of the Birth Center, we are delighted with quick and responsive manner in which our elected officials at the federal, state, county, and city levels of government have reached out to us. 

Congressman Peter DeFazio is unequivocal in his support. Read his message here. 

Congressman Peter DeFazio writes:  

I intend to work in Congress to increase access to midwives and birth centers to significantly boost maternal and infant health.

So, too, are Lane County Commissioners Peter Sorenson and Joe Berney fully supportive of our position that the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center is critical for our community and must remain open. Eugene City Councilor Emily Semple is unequivocal, too. We also appreciate the support received from City Mayor Lucy Vinis and State Representatives Julie Fahey and Marty Wilde. Friends of the Birth Center looks forward to continued support and engagement from our elected representatives. 

In closing to our community and supporters.....see you at the rally! Bring your signs and use them to make your economic power clear and understood.