WVU Medicine to reopen maternity at Uniontown hospital

By Kris B. Mamula / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

WVU Medicine Uniontown Hospital will again offer child birthing services starting early next year, six years after the hospital’s maternity unit was shuttered in a cost-cutting move.

Philanthropic gifts from the Uniontown and Fayette County areas are supporting the restart of services for low-risk births. The new center will feature five newly renovated labor, delivery and recovery rooms, 11 postpartum rooms and a new suite for deliveries requiring surgery.

Also planned is a three-bed Level II neonatal intensive care unit for close monitoring of sick and premature newborn children.

“Thanks to the generous donations from community members, we have been focused on making the necessary renovations to the facility as well as bolstering our recruitment efforts to make sure we are ready to welcome families in the new year,” Uniontown Hospital President and CEO Carrie Willetts said in a prepared statement.

Uniontown Hospital closed its 13-bed maternity unit and pediatrics department in mid-2019 after a partnership with Pittsburgh-based health care giant UPMC ended. At the same time, the hospital postponed a $32 million campus upgrade.

“We are joining a host of other community hospitals facing these difficult realities,” then-CEO Steve Handy said in a prepared statement. “The model didn’t work.”

WVU Medicine acquired the 145-bed Uniontown Hospital in January, 2020. The partnership has resulted in the expansion of primary and specialty care services, including cancer treatment in Fayette, Westmoreland and other nearby counties.

Among rural hospitals, WVU Medicine Uniontown Hospital is something of an anomaly since many smaller hospitals have been closing maternity units. Between 2010 and 2019, 114 rural hospitals in the U.S. eliminated inpatient services or closed altogether while others cut specific service lines, such as obstetrics, according to a report by KFF Health News, a San Francisco-based nonprofit.