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By Teagan Rasche

Medicine Hat maternity clinic to close tomorrow

Jul 14, 2021 | 3:25 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – After 17 years of caring for expectant mothers, Medicine Hat’s Family Medicine Maternity Clinic at the hospital officially closes for good tomorrow.

There will be no longer a centralized clinic. Instead, women will go to their family doctor, who will refer them to a physician who focuses on pregnancy.

Dr. Gerry Prince says it’s a more fragmented approach, but they are doing what they can to make things work.

He says the delivery group will still be in the hospital, but overall it’s a frustrating situation.

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“We spent 18 years building a maternity clinic that was really kind of state of the art,” Prince said. “It was really on the cutting edge of the kind of care that women should expect, not just in Medicine Hat but everywhere. It was integrated and centralized and we really had things fined tuned.”

More than 500 babies are delivered each year at the clinic. It’s closing due to a lack of funding.

READ MORE: Medicine Hat maternity clinic will continue to see patients until at least 2021