GRINNELL — Grinnell Regional Medical Center has received $600,000 to help finance expansion and remodeling of the labor and delivery unit. The funds are from the Iowa Economic Development Authority, part of the Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program. The Community Facilities and Service fund was awarded to the City of Grinnell with funding passed on to GRMC.

Pregnant women living in rural America face unprecedented barriers to maternity care. More than 100 rural hospitals throughout the country have closed since 2010. Of those that remain, 20% are at risk of closing, and many are choosing to shut down their obstetrics units due to the growing shortages of OB workforce and expertise in conjunction with low reimbursement and rising costs. In Iowa there were 79 hospitals with OB units in 2013; there are only 56 today, a decrease of nearly 30%.

GRMC is a recipient of the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services’ maternal health Center of Excellence grant to establish Iowa’s framework to sustain access to high quality OB services for rural populations. Originally awarded for an initial planning period in December 2021, GRMC is on the third installment of the grant and a purposeful leader in rural maternal health care. A multi-disciplinary team including obstetrics and gynecology providers, nurses, lactation specialists and leaders at GRMC is focusing efforts on maternal health outreach with prenatal and postpartum clinic visits, lactation support and postpartum home visits. Additionally, GRMC is expanding the offering of prenatal and postpartum education and support groups.

Currently, GRMC is the only hospital with a labor and delivery unit Poweshiek, Marshall, Iowa and Tama counties. In 2020, 155 babies were born at GRMC, which increased to 202 babies in 2021 and 210 babies born at GRMC in 2022. To date in 2023, 229 babies have been delivered at GRMC, with more deliveries anticipated before the end of the year.

GRMC Foundation launched Delivering Our Future in June 2023, a capital campaign focused on raising funds for the GRMC OB department renovation to add a fourth labor, delivery, recovery and postpartum room as well as update existing rooms to accommodate the expected continuing upward trend of OB deliveries at GRMC. To date, funding secured for GRMC’s labor and delivery renovation project in awarded monies, cash and pledges totals $846,854.23 – with the latest CDBG award, GRMC has a combined $1.45 million, over the halfway mark toward its updated project goal of $2.5 million.

Learn more about UnityPoint Health – Grinnell’s plans to grow OB care and ways to support the Delivering Our Future campaign at uph.link/DeliveringOurFuture.