‘The hospital never supported the midwives’: As more birth centers open, their viability hinges on nearby hospitals
BEVERLY, Mass. — It was fitting, one activist said, that the sky was storming on the night before the North Shore Birth Center closed, as patients, midwives, and community members gathered to commemorate its 42-year run. Over 30 people stood in a circle on the small hill by the cottage-like facility as rain whipped around them and the last of the daylight faded.
“We want to hold Beth Israel Lahey accountable,” Kristin Shapiro, a mother and member of the Save the North Shore Birth Center Coalition, told the crowd.
