Update March 2024:
Nuvance continues to create conditions at Sharon Hospital that are intended to lead to the closure of its Maternity Unit, in violation of the Ct. Office of Health Strategy’s Final Decision, issued on February 5, 2024, which ordered Nuvance to keep the Maternity Unit open.
Nuvance has caused pediatric coverage, which is needed to support the Maternity Unit, to be almost impossible to maintain. However, this would be an easy problem for Nuvance to solve, if they wanted to. Instead of cutting pediatrician compensation, causing them to leave Sharon Hospital, it could resume compensation at its prior rate or better yet increase it to match that of other Connecticut hospitals.
The matter is urgent, and the time to act is now. Nuvance must not be permitted to degrade Sharon Hospital’s Maternity Unit. Please contact our local, state, and federal representatives to demand that Nuvance’s destructive behavior be stopped. Click on the public officials below to contact them.
Ct. OHS Director Dr. Deidre Gifford
Ct. Attorney General William Tong
Ct. State Sen. Stephen Harding
Updates February 2024 (most recent listed first):
1) On February 28, 2024, Nuvance announced that it was planning a merger with New York-based Northwell Health. Save Sharon Hospital is concerned about what a merger with Northwell would mean for our community and for the future of Sharon Hospital, and we may file to intervene in the Office of Health Strategy Certificate of Need process to obtain assurances that healthcare in the Northwest Corner will be protected. We appreciate Northwell’s public statement that “Northwell will make significant investments in Nuvance Health, helping it continue to evolve as a high-quality and comprehensive health care system." We are hopeful this means that Northwell would change Nuvance's current course and be supportive of a thriving labor and delivery unit at Sharon Hospital, as well as keeping other vital services in our community.
2) On February 20, 2024, Nuvance filed a Petition for Reconsideration of its application to close maternity to the Office of Health Strategy.
3) On February 5, 2024, the Connecticut Office of Health Strategy (OHS) announced its Final Decision DENYING Nuvance Health's application to close the maternity unit at Sharon Hospital. In other words, WE WON! Maternity must stay open! We are so grateful to OHS for recognizing the importance of supporting the people served by community hospitals.
With this ruling, pregnant people can be assured that when they present to Sharon Hospital in labor or with an obstetrical emergency, they will be treated by an obstetrician with years of training and experience, and not by an emergency medicine physician who by definition does not have years of specialty training in obstetrics.
With this ruling, our community's pregnant people will not have to travel long distances, in potentially inclement weather, to access safe, high-quality birthing services. Instead, they can continue to find state-of-the-art birthing facilities at our local hospital!
With this ruling, Sharon Hospital must maintain on-call pediatricians and anesthesiologists, as well as surgical facilities. Without a maternity unit, those services are in peril for all patients.
We are hopeful that Nuvance will follow the OHS ruling and support maternity to the fullest. It does have the option to appeal the decision to the Superior Court of Connecticut, but Save Sharon Hospital will continue to advocate for protecting rural maternal health in our community. We are eager and willing to work with Nuvance to spread the word that maternity is open.
Thank you to everyone in our community who helped achieve this win, especially our generous donors who covered our legal expenses so we could oppose Nuvance’s application to state regulators. We are also grateful for our local, state, and federal elected officials for their steadfast support. They stated loud and clear that maternity services must be kept local. This is not just a win for our community, but for rural hospitals across the nation!
You can read the OHS final decision here.
Who we are:
In September 2021, Nuvance Health, the corporate owner of Sharon Hospital, announced plans to close Labor and Delivery and make cuts to the Surgical Department and the Intensive Care Unit within the next year. Our community needs these vital healthcare services to remain in our area. Sharon Hospital physicians and RNs agree with us - they voted 25-to-1 against Nuvance’s proposed cuts!
Save Sharon Hospital originally formed in 2018, the first time the owners of Sharon Hospital tried to close Labor and Delivery. At that time, we came together as a community to keep Maternity open, and we succeeded. On August 28, 2023, the Office of Health Strategy (OHS) announced its Proposed Final Decision to DENY Nuvance’s application to close Maternity. The OHS decision regarding Nuvance’s application to replace the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with a Progressive Care Unit (PCU) is due October 6, 2023.
What People Are Saying
“My daughter was born in 1988 at Sharon Hospital, and two of my grandchildren were born there in 2017 and 2019.
Sharon OBGYN and the Sharon Hospital birthing suites remain jewels in the Nuvance system. I see an opportunity to market and recruit for new patients, because we have a great facility with highly rated doctors and excellent nurses in the practice. Sharon Hospital isn’t a bank branch, and we don’t have other full-service options in this part of the world. Our community, including municipalities in the tristate area, independent schools, churches, businesses, weekenders, and residents, depend on the full services we have learned to trust at Sharon Hospital.”
— Nick, Sharon, CT