Editor’s note: The following letter to the editor was submitted by Newport Fire Chief Humphrey J. “Harp” Donnelly IV in response to today’s announcement that the Noreen Stonor Drexel Birthing Center at Newport Hospital will remain open. What’sUpNewp published a news story on the announcement, which you can read here.
The recent announcement by Brown University Healthcare regarding their intentions to keep the Noreen Stonor Drexel Birthing Center is very encouraging news and very positive for the residents and visitors to Newport County.
The City of Newport’s Fire Department responds to over 7,000 emergency incidents annually, with nearly 63% of all responses being related to emergencies and medical events. Currently, Newport’s Fire Department is one of the few municipal Fire Departments licensed to provide paramedic-level prehospital care and treatment. Over the past 12 months, twenty-three of our emergency medical responses were to assist expected mothers with their maternity-related OB-GYN needs. Two of those twenty-three transports to Newport Hospitals Noreen Stonor Drexel Birthing Center eventually were transported to Women and Infants Hospital in Providence.
The relatively low number of incidents and transports is a direct result of the current availability of the Noreen Stonor Drexel Birthing Center located in Newport Hospital. An additional factor in the low number of emergency transports, is the community’s ability to have access to conveniently utilize the many services provided by the center using their own personal methods of transportation. If the community did not have these local services available, residents and guests would either need to self-transport or rely on Emergency Services to transport them to an off-island facility.
One concern that stands out is that the City of Newport has the highest percentage of low- income and subsidized housing per capita in the state. Many of the community’s expecting mothers who find themselves in that demographic may not have adequate access to constant reliable transportation that would be a safe and dependable option to travel to off- island facilities for various OB-GYN necessities including neonatal, postnatal, and childbirth needs. Thereby making them potentially more dependent on Emergency Services to provide transportation. Keeping this in mind, there’s potential that Emergency Services will be needed more often for transportation.
The current emergency transfer of a mother in labor to an off-island facility would require a minimum of four personnel for a two to four-hour round-trip transportation time. This is to ensure the safe transport and care for a non-challenging pregnancy. A complicated pregnancy or childbirth scenario would require two rescues, each with a four-person crew. One rescue would provide treatment and transportation for the mother, while the second rescue would provide treatment and transportation for the newborn child.
This potential demand on eight members of the on-duty staffing would create a significant drain on the availability of firefighters and apparatus to respond to the community’s other emergency needs. Extended off-island transportation times would necessitate the ordering in of off duty firefighters at an overtime rate to maintain mandatory minimum staffing requirements. An increased number of potential off-island medical transports would make local fire departments more dependent on mutual aid assistance from neighboring departments. This will cause prolonged response times and, in many cases, lower level of prehospital care depending on the emergency licensing of neighboring department.
If the Noreen Stonor Drexel Birthing Center were to cease operations, additional neonatal and obstetric emergency medical training and certifications would be pursued by our department to ensure the highest level of prehospital emergency care for Newport County’s residents and guests. However, it is undeniable that the care provided by the Birthing Center currently available at the Noreen Stonor Drexel Birthing Center surpasses any other prehospital care and treatment for expecting mothers and their newborns.
I encourage everyone interested in supporting the continued operation and availability of the life-changing services provided by the dedicated staff of the Noreen Stonor Drexel Birthing Center at Newport Hospital to reach out to the leadership of Brown University Healthcare and share your support for their decision to move forward with continuation of this critical community need. Please keep in mind that additional work is still needed to find a long-term plan to achieve permanent sustainability of this valued service.
Respectfully,
Humphrey J. “Harp” Donnelly, IV
Fire Chief, City of Newport, RI and
Director of Emergency Management Agency
