The desire by certified nurse midwife Mary Carol Akers to open an alternative birthing center in Kentucky, has been quickly met with opposition from three area hospitals, including Hardin Memorial Hospital, Flaget Memorial Hospital in Bardstown and Twin Lakes Regional Medical Center in Leitchfield.
All have filed documents with the state in opposition to the center, which would be located in Elizabethtown.
Akers has applied to the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family for what is called a certificate of need for permission to build and operate the Visitation Birth and Family Wellness Center in Elizabethtown.
Supposedly the purpose of the certificate is to "safeguard" against too many health care facilities being in the area, but that's nonsense of course. It's really an anti-competitive regulation to protect the status quo of health care in the area.
After all, with Obamacare, there are going to be so many extra patients seeking medical care in general, that any help would be needed. It's the particular birthing service that is threatening to the hospitals, as it's among the more lucrative and consistent money earners.
If Akers succeeds in getting the okay, it'll be the first alternative birthing center in Kentucky.
She will get an opportunity to defend herself and the proposed Center on February 20-21 at a hearing.
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