The Greene County Medical Center Board of Trustees voted at their meeting Thursday to discontinue obstetrics services at the hospital and the Advanced Women’s Care clinic.

Chief Executive Officer Carl Behne explains the board’s decision came down to their three-lane standard of care: quality of care, cost of care and access to care at the medical center.

“Quality of care and looking at the market-share trend over an eight-year period certainly is daunting thing to think that we could change that with our county demographics. Then you have the access piece and certainly their (the Board’s) concern to that GYN (gynecology) piece of the equation and wanting to make sure that we can provide a level of service. And then finally the cost perspective and not only the cost of delivering that care but the cost of the impact of that care on the entire organization and they have a fiduciary duty to ensure that the medical center is here to serve the county as a whole.”

The Board was given a report that of the 113 county women residents that gave birth to a baby in 2015, 27 of those residents delivered their child at the medical center, while the hospital saw 43 total births, which includes residents from other counties. The rest went to another facility outside of the medical center, including 31 traveling to the Des Moines area. The medical center had a net loss of $288,949 last year from the OB department.

The Board stated that they aren’t abandoning any OB patients and they want the medical center to help direct them of where to go for services. Going forward, the Board unanimously voted to continue the gynecology services.

The Board is putting together a 60- to 90-day plan to phase out the OB services.