After years of delays, Temple Women and Families Hospital will soon open its doors for inpatient services after a year of offering just outpatient care.
The hospital aims to begin offering inpatient services in early January 2025 pending state regulatory approvals, wrote Jeremey Walter, director of media relations at Temple Health, in a statement to The Temple News. These approvals cannot be made until construction and a physical inspection have been completed.
The hospital’s goals include reducing maternal mortality rates and providing healthcare to all women and families, regardless of their socioeconomic status. Temple University Hospital purchased the buildings, equipment and supplies of the former Cancer Treatment Centers of America location in Northeast Philadelphia for $12 million in June 2021.
“We are going to great lengths to make sure this campus provides our community with the high-quality services and care that they deserve,” Walter wrote. “Those efforts have been extensive and the delays have been entirely construction related as the refurbishment project turned out to be larger than we originally thought.”
The requirements for building a new Neonatal Intensive Care Unit — which includes a larger heating, ventilation and air conditioning system for the hospital and some asbestos insulation being removed — are reasons for the delay in offering inpatient services, Walter wrote.
The hospital will be working to combat maternal mortality as rates across the country have risen in the last 30 years. There were 110 pregnancy-associated deaths in Philadelphia from 2013-18 according to a March 2022 report released by the City of Philadelphia’s official website. That number is nearly 15% above the national average.
Black mothers are three times more likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes than white women in the United States, the CDC reported.
Latrice Jackson, a senior paralegal officer at the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and a mother of two, has noticed the racial disparities in maternal healthcare.
“Women of color, Black and brown, who have experienced this devastating loss makes you question whether the circumstances were the same with their white counterparts,” Jackson said. “Were there underlying concerns with that mother who was of color or her white counterpart that weren’t addressed prior to delivery?”
Temple Women and Families’ website says it is committed to addressing both existing and emerging health conditions while working to rectify historical disparities in healthcare.
“Exceptional services are being designed to ensure that our patients have access to the highest quality care in a patient-centered environment, and are able to achieve the best outcomes regardless of their social and economic circumstances,” wrote Michael Young, president and CEO of Temple Health, in a 2021 press release after the acquisition of the hospital.
Temple Women and Families Hospital reaffirmed that their goals are the same as before the delays and they are dedicated to providing the best possible outcomes for their patients.
“Temple Health is dedicated to partnering with our community to reverse the trend of maternal and women’s health outcomes,” Walter wrote. “Temple Women & Families will be the Philadelphia area’s only campus exclusively dedicated to women’s and families’ health. This means developing an equitable model for ensuring healthy parents, babies, and pregnancy outcomes.”
Alongside the new NICU, the hospital will offer private rooms for mothers and their children, 12 labor and delivery and high risk antepartum beds, 32 postpartum beds, 8 ICU beds, a triage and stabilization area, an expanded neonatal unit and more than 75 exam rooms, including radiology, mammography, MRI and CT rooms.
Members of the Philadelphia community are awaiting the opening of the hospital. Alli Nikles, a 2024 liberal studies alumna, believes the hospital will positively impact the Philadelphia community.
“A campus completely focused on the healthcare of women would aid in a comforting and welcoming environment,” Nikles said. “I firmly believe that this hospital is important for society today as it offers a variety of different services necessary for women’s health, some of which aren’t available at a typical hospital. A campus for all speciality services would be very cohesive.”
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