CASA GRANDE — Sun Life Health will pause infant delivery services at Banner Casa Grande Medical Center effective Aug. 1. The organization stated the decision was made due to a shortage of obstetricians and gynecologists, indicating it cannot adequately provide care at the necessary level of patient safety with the current number of OB-GYNs.

For several years, Sun Life Health has been the sole provider of obstetrical services at Banner Casa Grande. Going forward, Sun Life delivery patients will travel to Banner Ocotillo Medical Center in Chandler, where Sun Life Health will exclusively offer delivery services for its pregnant patients starting Aug. 1.

Dr. Jonathan Willms, Sun Life Health Chief Medical Officer, said the decision was difficult. "This is one of the heaviest decisions I have had to make in my career, it impacts the lives of many people and not one I have taken lightly," Willms said. "This decision hits close to home, as I have had the privilege of providing care to hundreds of women delivering in Casa Grande. I am grateful for their trust and hope this is a short-term pause."

Samantha Reinhard, Sun Life Health Director of Community Outreach, confirmed that a nationwide shortage of qualified OB-GYN providers was the primary reason for pausing services in Casa Grande. "We have a shortage. There's an OB-GYN provider shortage nationally. It's not a Sun Life thing, it's not an Arizona thing, it is national and has been on the rise for years. It's finally impacting our organization. Recruitment is really tough and we've lost a handful of providers due to different life decisions so we don't have enough OB-GYNs to staff both facilities," Reinhard said.

"On a safe patient level, we take quality and I like to say most healthcare organizations take quality really seriously, but we really value patient safety," Reinhard said. "Our patients are always in the best hands possible, especially in such a delicate situation, and so we don't feel we adequately have enough OB-GYNs to cover both hospitals at this time. We're actively recruiting. We have along the years added midwives into the practice. Those still require OB-GYNs to be on call, however not necessarily at the capacity for when it's solely OB-GYN. We did implement those strategies a few years ago, which has helped."

The new multi-story Sun Life Casa Grande Medical Campus on Florence Boulevard is scheduled to open this summer. "I think that's an alluring recruitment tool. I think the integrated practice and getting to work alongside family medicine, alongside pediatrics, all of it in one place is an alluring factor for a lot of OB-GYNs, so I think that would be really helpful in a recruitment perspective. I guess time will tell. However, I think having all of those services on site is really nice. You can literally tell a patient to just go downstairs to see a pediatrician or to have a mammography. We're providing full-service patient care in the one place," Reinhard said.

Sun Life Health will continue to provide outpatient OB-GYN services through its office in Casa Grande. Scheduled gynecologic surgeries will also continue to be performed at Banner Casa Grande.