Coming to Prince George’s County, Maryland: A medical facility doing more to keep moms-to-be and their babies alive, healthy and close to home.
When it comes to having babies, many women in Prince George’s County have to go out of the county to get the medical care they need.
“Eight out of 10 moms who live in the county deliver their babies outside of the county,” said Deneen Richmond, president of Luminis Health Doctors Community Medical Center in a news release. “Prince George’s County is the second-most populous county in the State of Maryland and women deserve to be able to have their baby close to home.”
That’s just one of the disheartening statistics that explains the need for the $300 million medical pavilion Luminis Health has been approved to build in Lanham, Maryland, focused on women’s health.
The facility has big plans to expand the annual labor and delivery offerings in the county.
“When we are at full capacity, and of course it will take us a couple of years to build up to that, but we expect to deliver over 2,000 babies,” Richmond said.
She said the facility is also about offering thorough pre- and postnatal care, something especially important in Prince’s George’s County, where the maternal death rate is high.
“In Prince George’s County, particularly for our Black non-Hispanic moms it’s even 50% higher than the rate for the rest of the county,” Richmond said. “37.4 maternal deaths per 100,000 births.”
She is hoping the new $300 million medical pavilion will help that number drop, with a focus on women’s health and empowering women to make positive changes for their own health.
“When women are able to easily get to prenatal care, when women are listened to, when they are educated so that they can advocate for themselves, both during their pregnancy as well as when they are actually in labor and delivery, when we wrapped services around pregnant moms, we can make a difference,” said Richmond.
Now that the plan for the facility has been approved by the Maryland Health Commission, infrastructure work on the facility should start early in 2024, with the entire facility not expected to be completed until 2028.
