The birth of Cochranite Steph O’Gara’s first child was a five-day ordeal involving more than $200 in hotel fees, hospital transfers and long drives on the highway in winter conditions.
More and more expectant mothers have to find ways to safely deliver since there is no hospital with a maternity ward in Cochrane despite it being a municipality that continues to grow.
Mothers and families in this town aren’t alone in this conundrum and many rural areas across the province and country are without maternity wards either because they have shuttered or were never granted one in the first place.
In March 2013, Banff’s Mountain Springs Hospital eliminated obstetrical care and those giving birth were referred to Canmore’s General Hospital. The move allowed the Banff hospital larger capacity for joint repair and cosmetic plastic surgery for Canadians and foreign tourists – elective surgeries and non-medically necessary cosmetic surgeries often paid for privately.
Cindy Adeka of Family and Community Support Services said the recent Cochrane Cares Survey – a community feedback initiative – put a women’s health clinic on the radar.
“Some women in the community who expressed a desire to have enhanced women’s health care provided in there own community and that would include anything to do with child birthing,” she said, adding that the steering committee will be reconvening at the end of this month to discuss the next steps from the survey results.
But Alberta Health Services (AHS) said it is unlikely Cochrane would gain a birthing centre any time soon.
“AHS ensures that all medical resources that may be necessary to serve and treat maternity patients are stationed in acute care hospitals and it would not be feasible to replicate these services in Cochrane at this time,” read an email statement from AHS.
For O’Gara, such a facility would have made life a lot easier. It was just before a winter storm in March 2014 when, at nine-months pregnant, she and her husband left their home in Cochrane for Canmore where O’Gara planned to deliver.
The 45-minute drive to the hospital in Canmore wasn’t exactly nearby, but her other option was a 30-minute drive to Calgary and the couple, who have always lived in rural areas and previously lived in Canmore, chose to go with the familiar.
“The thought of Calgary is a little overwhelming, it’s very busy and Foothills (hospital) is crazy,” O’Gara said.
When the couple arrived to the hospital that evening, O’Gara was induced and expected to deliver the baby by the next day. She was able to stay overnight in the hospital and after little progress in the labour she was released, but going home was not feasible.
The next two nights, the couple stayed at a Canmore hotel instead of driving back to Cochrane through winter conditions.
In total, the couple shouldered close to $100 per night in hotel fees plus the cost of buying meals.
And after all that, O’Gara was sent to Foothills Hospital in Calgary to deliver by caesarean section.
In a study by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, rural women are four times more likely to be transferred from one hospital to another compared to urban women – 2.5 per cent versus 0.6 per cent. However, the study did note that transfer among both across Canada is not necessarily uncommon.
“It was a long time and luckily we didn’t have another child to care for at the time so my husband could just be there the whole time. My friend took the dog,” O’Gara recounted.
When O’Gara had her second child in March 2017, she had a planned caesarean at Foothill’s Hospital.
Though at first this labour was less of a hassle, her new son took in fluid during a complication with the C-section, and suffered a punctured lung and had to stay in the NICU for three days before being transferred to the Rocky View Hospital in south Calgary for another week.
This time with a daughter to care for, she opted not to stay at the hospital with her new son. This meant needing a ride to and from the Rocky View Hospital each day – a 45-minute drive she wasn’t able to make on her own due to the recovery process from the C-section.
If she were to have more children, O’Gara said she would advocate for a hospital with a maternity ward here in town.
“Having that resource closer would be a major benefit and also relieve some of the stress of travelling 30 to 45 (minutes) while in labour. A lot of us worry we won’t get to the hospital in time because you never know how long your labour will be or how long you should stay at home before going in,” she said.
Cochrane mom Crystal Blanchard hired a midwife through Cochrane Community Midwives during her second pregnancy to avoid needing to rush off to Calgary. The program has been growing in popularity in the town since its inception in 2014 and by the following year they had celebrated helping birth their 100th baby.
However, Blanchard wound up at the Foothills Hospital due to complications anyway.
“Knowing that risk was there I was happy to be in the hospital. It’s just that Foothills is very crowded– it’s not a good experience,” she said. “I do feel that if there was a hospital birthing option here it would reduce the amount of women forced to birth at Foothills so people who need the NICU or feel strongly about birthing in a hospital with a NICU would likely have less of a wait.”
Cochrane midwives do have hospital privileges, which makes the transition to a hospital much faster than going alone.
“We’ll often call the hospital and say a mom is in labour, it’s looking like it’s time to head in. We just let them know we’re on our way,” said Shianna Pace, a registered midwife in Cochrane. “We usually give them a heads up and make sure there’s room for our client.”
Others are luckier when it comes to birthing in comfort including Carmen Beck who had two of her three children in her home in Cochrane.
“Knowing that we were farther away I wanted to have the flexibility to stay home and be comfortable here,” Beck said, who resides in Heartland.
She compared it to her first birth where she was living in Calgary at the time.
“When I went to the hospital with my first – because I didn’t have a midwife – the drive to the hospital was only about five minutes but it was an absolutely excruciating five minutes,” she said.
“The idea of labouring and then having to drive to a hospital that was say 30 to 40 minutes away depending on traffic, that idea was horrific.”
“I think it would be amazing if women had the option of birthing in Cochrane in a hospital setting if that is their preference (or) if it is required for health or safety reasons. The more choice and autonomy that women have in birthing the better.”
