Las Palmas Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, owned by Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare, opened a three-story, $63 million maternity ward March 27, according to the El Paso Times.
The addition, called the Las Palmas Women's Center, includes 24 postpartum rooms, a 35-bed neonatal intensive care unit and one vacant floor for future expansion. Las Palmas CEO Don Karl told the El Paso Times the unit was built to keep up with a growing number of births.
Las Palmas Medical Center is opening its maternity ward as hospitals nationwide are closing their labor and delivery units due to cost-cutting measures and a decreasing number of births. More than half of rural counties don't have a hospital-based unit for obstetrics services, with 9 percent of rural counties losing their obstetrics services between 2004 and 2014, according to a study from the University of Minnesota Rural Health Center in Minneapolis.
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