Corona Regional to End Labor and Delivery by Jan. 30, 2026 amid Birth Decline
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The morning after giving birth, Detranay Blakenship holds her child, Myla Sqmone Grace Thimbrel, while recovering at Martin Luther King Community Hospital in Los Angeles, on March 23, 2024. Photo by Jules Hotz for CalMatters
Southwest Healthcare Corona Regional Medical Center will stop providing labor and delivery services by Jan. 30, 2026, the hospital announced.
The hospital cited a drop in births at the facility, and a general decline in birth rates in Riverside County. Births in the county peaked in August 2007, when 2,784 babies were born, according to state data. In August, there were just 1,891 births.
Chief Nursing Officer Phyllis Snyder was not immediately available to comment.
This is the latest in a series of maternity ward closures across California, as CalMatters reporters Kristen Hwang, Ana B. Ibarra and Erica Yee detailed in their 10-part series on the spread of maternity-care deserts in the state.
Hemet Global Medical Center’s maternity ward closed in January, and Palo Verde Hospital in Blythe closed in 2023. Across the state, 56 hospitals stopped delivering babies between 2012 and September 2024.
The high costs for operating labor and delivery wards is one of the reasons for their closures, CalMatters reported in 2023. The legislature has responded to the crisis by requiring a 120-day notice of ward closures. A second bill would have required notice to the state six months before a labor and delivery ward would be closed. Newsom vetoed the bill, saying it was not likely to change a hospital’s decision.
This legislative session, Assemblymember Mia Bonta introduced AB 55. The bill would lower the requirements for birth center licenses if signed, as Hwang reported. It is currently sitting on Newsom’s desk.
In the 2023-2024 session, the legislature passed AB 2490, which would have created a government fund to support healthcare funding in emergency departments. Newsom vetoed it out of budgetary concerns.
Obstetrician John McHugh, whose Glendale labor and delivery ward closed this year, wrote about the closure for CalMatters: “Unless we prioritize keeping labor and delivery units open, Californians will continue to sacrifice pieces of their past — and the ability to safely give birth close to home for years and years to come.”
This article was originally published by CalMatters.
