🏥 ROSELAND COMMUNITY HOSPITAL CLOSING LABOR & DELIVERY UNIT: SOUTH SIDE MOMS LEFT WITH FEWER OPTION

📍CHICAGO — Another place to safely deliver a baby on Chicago’s South Side is disappearing.

Roseland Community Hospital plans to suspend labor and delivery services effective October 31, 2026, a move that will force expectant mothers who would have delivered there to travel elsewhere. The hospital says serious financial pressures are behind the decision.

And this isn't happening in isolation.

Several Chicago-area hospitals have recently eliminated or announced reductions in obstetric services, raising concerns about just how far some women will have to travel when it's time to give birth.

WHAT HAPPENS TO ROSELAND'S PREGNANT PATIENTS?

Roseland's outpatient obstetrics clinic will remain open, meaning patients can still receive prenatal care there.

But when it's time to actually have the baby, they'll need another hospital.

Hospital staff are working on transition plans for current patients. Dr. Joy West, chair of obstetrics at Roseland, told ABC7 that some patients are already traveling at least 30 minutes for maternity care as options on the South Side disappear.

And anybody who has ever dealt with labor knows one thing:

Babies do not care about traffic.

THIS IS BIGGER THAN ONE HOSPITAL

Roseland is a safety-net hospital serving a community where access to health care is already a major concern.

According to ABC7, at least five labor and delivery units have closed across the South Side and south suburbs since 2019. Dr. West says the number of South Side closures over roughly the last six or seven years may be even higher.

Prime Healthcare also ended obstetric services at three Illinois hospitals on October 1: Resurrection Medical Center in Chicago, St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet and Mercy Medical Center in Aurora.

That means fewer maternity units at the same time families still need somewhere to go.

BLACK MOTHERS ARE ESPECIALLY AFFECTED

This part can't be buried underneath hospital budgets and spreadsheets.

Illinois Department of Public Health data cited by ABC7 shows that Black women in Illinois are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes, while in Chicago, Black women are reported to be six times more likely to die within a year after giving birth.

That's why doctors and maternal-health advocates are sounding the alarm about losing neighborhood maternity services.

When a pregnant woman develops dangerously high blood pressure, begins hemorrhaging, goes into premature labor or experiences another emergency, an extra 20 or 30 minutes isn't just an inconvenience.

Distance matters.

WHY IS ROSELAND CLOSING THE UNIT?

Hospital officials say finances are a major factor.

Roseland has struggled financially for years, and earlier this year the hospital received a $16 million state grant to help make payroll and keep the hospital operating. Administrators say maintaining the maternity department is no longer financially sustainable without putting the broader hospital at risk.

That creates one ugly question for Chicago:

What happens when a service isn't profitable enough to keep open, but a community still desperately needs it?

Because pregnancy doesn't disappear when a maternity ward does.

The mothers simply have to go somewhere else.

And on Chicago's South Side, "somewhere else" keeps getting farther away.

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