WVU Medicine looking to open obstetric unit in Uniontown by end of year
West Virginia University Medicine wants to open an obstetric unit in the Uniontown area by the end of the year.
Dr. Leo Brancazio, chair of WVU School of Medicine’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, said that the unit would initially be staffed by one doctor and one midwife, with patients still getting hospital care at J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown.
“We’ll just see if that’s helpful to the community as a first step, and we’ll just take it from there,” Brancazio said.
Three UPMC women’s obstetrics/gynecology locations in the Uniontown area closed as a result of Uniontown Hospital and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center having parted ways effective July 1, and Brancazio noted that this summer brought more women seeking obstetrical care to Morgantown and a greater number of deliveries there.
“(W)e started putting together a business plan to see if we could support a small practice in Uniontown with the thought that the patient would still have to deliver here in Morgantown,” Brancazio said.
Brancazio said it would make sense for the obstetric unit to move to the 25,000-square-foot medical building on land currently owned by Sisters of St. Basil in North Union Township that the Fayette County Zoning Hearing Board granted WVU Medicine a special exception for in June, once the building is constructed and ready for occupancy. WVU Medicine representatives told the zoning hearing board that that building would house physician office space as well as primary and specialty outpatient care.
“If WVU does go through with it and build an outpatient site, it would be silly for us to rent space when we have our own,” Brancazio said.
WVU Medicine began operations earlier this month at a new $13.8 million outpatient center in Franklin Township, Greene County. That center includes an obstetrics and gynecology clinic with points of focus such as urogynecology and female sexual dysfunction, according to a WVU Medicine press release.
“When it comes to the routine things or follow-up(s), we’re trying to make it easier for the patient so they don’t have to travel as far,” Brancazio said. “So that was the whole philosophy behind Waynesburg … to put a facility where our patients were coming from.”
The void left by UPMC’s departure is getting filled by another source as well.
One of the UPMC women’s obstetrics/gynecology locations that closed in the Uniontown area, the longstanding gynecological practice of Dr. John Sunyecz and Dr. Christine Wilson in Hopwood, reopened under the Mon Health Medical Center banner with a ribbon-cutting ceremony earlier this month.
Brancazio confirmed that opening a birthing center in the Uniontown area is not currently in WVU Medicine’s plans.
The Family Beginnings Birthing Center at Uniontown Hospital closed effective July 1 due to UPMC’s departure.
WVU Medicine now staffs the hospital’s inpatient emergency department and hospitalist physician services.
Brancazio said that WVU Medicine couldn’t financially support continuing women’s health care starting July 1 under the same structure as provided under the Fayette Physician Network, the physician service joint venture between Uniontown Hospital and UPMC.
“We tried working the numbers,” Brancazio said. “It just didn’t work out.”
But Brancazio noted that WVU Medicine’s mission is to make sure that area women have adequate access to medical care, whether they’re in West Virginia or not, and that’s why the health care system is looking to set up a physician and a midwife in Uniontown.
“I don’t want women to have to travel a long distance just for basic prenatal care,” Brancazio said.