Sisitsky: MetroWest Medical Center’s Maternity Services to be Reduced

FRAMINGHAM - During the Framingham City Council’s meeting on Tuesday, February 26, Mayor Charlie Sisitsky outlined plans from Tenet Healthcare to reduce local medical services.

Sisitsky said that MetroWest Medical Center CEO John Whitlock Jr. recently informed him about plans from Tenet, the Texas-based company that owns MetroWest Medical Center and its subsidiary sites, to close the Level IIB special care nursery at Framingham Union Hospital in June. The mayor added that the local maternity and nursery ward will remain open, albeit in a limited fashion as a Level I nursery with basic care for newborns.

Roughly 500 maternity deliveries are carried out at Framingham Union Hospital each year, according to Sisitsky’s summary of his conversation with Whitlock Jr. as told on Tuesday, with about 50 of those births calling for Level IIB care. For reference, state statistics show that Framingham Union Hospital had about 1,000 total births in both 2021 and 2022, the most recent years with complete and applicable data.

In the future, Sisitsky said that any MetroWest families in need of Level IIB services will have to travel to either Boston or Worcester.

“I’m concerned that this could have a cascading effect on maternity services as a whole at MetroWest Medical Center,” Sisitsky continued.

The mayor told the City Council that he has requested to state officials that the required hearing on the maternity matter, which has to be held within 60 days of any closures, take place in Framingham. He also said he’s reached out to the local elected delegation at the State House along with Massachusetts Nurses Association President and Framingham resident Katie Murphy about this topic.

Additionally, Sisitsky mentioned he was informed by Whitlock Jr. that Tenet will not be renewing their lease for the MetroWest Wellness Center along Route 9 after it expires in July. The mayor explained that all services at the site, with the exception of the therapy pool, will be relocated to either Framingham Union Hospital or to MetroWest Medical Center’s building at 61 Lincoln Street.

City Council members joined Sisitsky in expressing worries about these developments, as District 1 City Councilor Christine Long called continued reductions to healthcare a “crisis” across Massachusetts. She and other members of the group called for additional legislative oversight and assistance from the state level.

“To me, as a parent of a child who was born (at Framingham Union Hospital) that needed the ICU for several weeks,” Long said, “it’s really disturbing to see what’s going on with Tenet Healthcare: basically, corporate raiders piecing out the whole hospital for profit.”

At-Large City Council member George King pointed to shrinking birth numbers in Framingham compared to when he was the Town Clerk in the mid-to-late 1990’s; he said that Framingham Union Hospital used to have about 2,500 to 3,000 births a year during that period.

“So if the hospital has shrunk down that much per year, I can’t imagine what it means going forward…It’s just another area that’s totally eroding away, and it’s really a disgrace what this for-profit company is getting away with here,” King said.

As of the time of this article's publication—the morning of Thursday, February 27—MetroWest Medical Center has yet to respond to a request from The Frame for a comment on this matter.