Page 12/The Battalion/Wednesday, June 22,1983
Economics of obstetrics
now a matter of location
United Press International
Urban flight and low birth
rates have forced manv inner-
city hospitals to close obstetrics
wards, but a “mini baby boom” is
sparking a comeback in the busi
ness of births in suburbia.
Hospital planners and admi
nistrators say delivering babies
has never been a big revenue
producer for their institutions.
High-tech diagnostic services
and surgery are the real money
makers. But in the last few years,
obstetrics has turned from a los
er to a profitmaker for some
hospitals.
Location, they say, appears to
be the key.
Middle-class flight from in
ner cities apparently has caused
a radical shift in the birth busi
ness to suburban areas, where
couples of child-bearing age and
financial resources have relo
cated.
“It has been a trend in most
major cities,” said Robert
Wright, vice president of plan
ning for Mercy Health Center, a
non-profit hospital which
moved from the inner city to the
suburbs in 1975.
“We built out where the
population was projected to
come,” he said. “Now we’re
reaping the benefits.”
While the birth rate at Mercy
has been soaring for the past
three years, plummeting obstet
rics business at St. Anthony Hos
pital, a non-profit hospital in the
inner city, has caused adminis
trators to eliminate the entire
obstetrics ward.
“The number of births has
been declining every year for
the last seven years,” said St.
Anthony administrator J.
Michael Stephans, who came to
Oklahoma City from a St. Louis
inner-city hospital also forced to
close its obstetrics ward.
Because of all the support
facilities that have to be main
tained to operate obstetrics
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wards, a sharp drop in the birth
rate can be a heavy financial
blow, Stephans said.
“Below a certain point, you
don’t come close to covering the
cost,” he said.
The slowed economy also has
forced more couples to rely on
state hospitals for birth services,
said Dr. John Fishburne, chair
man of obstetrics and gynecolo
gy at state-funded Oklahoma
Memorial Hospital.
He said more than 4,000
babies a year are being delivered
in facilities built to handle 2,500
as the recession has made it im
possible for many couples to
afford a private obstetrician.
Jerry Evans, director of plan
ning for Baptist Medical Center,
a non-profit, privately owned
facility on the city’s growing
northwest side, said most hospit
als constructed during the 1950s
and early 1960s included obstet
rics wards designed for birth
volumes of the post-World War
II baby boom. When births de
clined in the 1970s, those hospit
als which could keep an adequ
ate volume did okay, those
which could not suffered sub
stantial losses, he said.
However, the original “baby
felayed
boom” kids who put off having
children through their early 20s
now are having children of their
own, helping the birth business
make a comeback.
“There is a mini baby boom in
about its third year now,” Evans
said. “We’re catching up with
the births that were' de
through the 1970s.”
The baby business is “com
petitive” and more “price re
sponsive,” making it unique
among most hospital services,
Evans said. “You’re talking ab
out young people who will typic
ally shop around k bit.”
He has joined other hospitals
in providing facilities for the
growing number of couples who
prefer natural childbirth, which
costs one-third to one-fourth of
the $2,000 to $4,000 a tradition
al birth can run. Brandy Mills,
vice president of financial
affairs for the Oklahoma Hos
pital Association, said while ob
stetrics and emergency rooms
traditionally are “notorious los
ers,” as long as birth rate is
climbing, the baby business can
be more of a profitable venture.
“It’s really a volume busi
ness,” he said.
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Hitchhiking risks hidden
ether th
gets set 1
United Press International
Hitchhiking’s appeal to eco
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ward B. Patroski, director of in
vestigations for Pinkerton’s,
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At the same time, teenage
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