Trident Medical Center in North Charleston will stop delivering babies next month.
Trident Health announced Thursday that it will consolidate its obstetric and neonatal services at Summerville Medical Center on July 9. Trident Medical Center will end those services on Monday, July 8.
Trident Health delivered almost 2,800 babies in 2018, according to the health system, an affiliate of Nashville-based HCA Healthcare.
A support team of physicians and clinicians will remain at the North Charleston hospital for women in labor who arrive there for emergency care, Trident Health said.
“This is a significant milestone for Trident Health and for our Lowcountry families,” said Dr. Beth Cook, an obstetrician-gynecologist and Summerville Medical Center’s chief medical officer. “We are honored to expand the excellent care we can provide our moms and babies.”
A tower built for the move
The consolidation has been planned for more than two years. Summerville Medical Center broke ground in March 2017 on a $53 million, 30-bed expansion that the hospital called the first step in combining its women’s and children’s services. Trident Health said then that it was the largest project in the hospital’s history.
That expansion is now complete. Its women’s and neonatal unit is a two-story tower with 30 private postpartum rooms, 12 labor and delivery rooms and a 16-bed Level II neonatal intensive care unit, according to Trident Health. The project also includes an obstetric suite in the emergency department, a cesarean section suite and more than $10 million in technology.
Before construction, teams spent nearly 12 months meeting with families, physicians and staff to design the space, the hospital said at the groundbreaking.
“It was important to get the design and construction right for our patients,” Lisa Valentine, Summerville Medical Center’s chief executive officer, said then.
Following the growth
Hospital leaders have tied the project to the region’s growth.
“We are experiencing significant growth in the Lowcountry,” Valentine said Thursday. “As a result, Summerville Medical Center is growing our facility, our services and our team so that moms and babies can receive excellent care in their own community.”
At the 2017 groundbreaking, the hospital cited predictions by South Carolina economic development experts that nearly 50 people move into Dorchester, Berkeley and Charleston counties every day.
Doug Warren, chairman of Trident Health’s board of trustees and director of Dorchester County EMS, credited hospital leaders at the time with planning for that growth.
“They are very thoughtful and deliberate in their discussions about how to best care for the families who are here and prepare for those who are coming,” Warren said.
Valentine said in 2017 that Summerville Medical Center was already the preferred provider of women’s and children’s care for thousands of local families, pointing to its pediatric emergency room, maternal fetal medicine and labor and delivery departments. She said then that the hospital had called Summerville home for 27 years.
A change in North Charleston
The move ends obstetric and neonatal services at Trident Health’s flagship. Trident Medical Center opened in July 1975 as the 220-bed Trident Regional Hospital, according to HCA.
In its announcement, Trident Health said Trident Medical Center “has had the privilege of caring for our community for 45 years, and will continue that care alongside the entire Trident Health women’s and neonatal services team at Summerville Medical Center.”
The announcement did not say how Trident Medical Center will use the space its obstetric and neonatal units occupy, or whether any jobs will be affected by the move.
Trident Health also runs two freestanding emergency departments, Centre Pointe Emergency in North Charleston and Moncks Corner Medical Center in Berkeley County.
For expectant parents, the practical change comes July 9. From that day, Trident Health’s deliveries and newborn intensive care will happen in Summerville.
