The planned closure follows the shutdown of Providence Medical Service’s labor and delivery program, and will expand the area of the Kansas City metro without maternal care services.

Around 40 union members and registered nurses gathered on a Monday evening under the steady drill of cicadas to protest the impending shutdown of the Research Medical Center’s neonatal intensive care unit and labor and delivery services.

Since HCA Healthcare, the nation’s largest hospital system, took over the hospital in 2003, it has “driven away specialized health care providers and moved services to other facilities,” nurses said in an Aug. 4 press release, reducing access to crucial medical care for Missouri’s most vulnerable populations.

The American landscape for women’s healthcare has taken several h

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