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(Honesdale, January 20, 2009)… Women’s Health Care of NE PA became part of Wayne Memorial Community Health Centers this month, a move that virtually gives Wayne County’s only obstetrician/gynecology physician group a new lease on life.

      “This will bring stability to an unstable medical environment,” explained Pedro Mencia, MD, one of the group’s three physicians.  “Over the last 10 years, we have seen decreased reimbursements from private insurers and medical assistance and increased costs of doing business, including steep hikes in malpractice insurance.”

      Wayne Memorial Community Health Centers (CHC), a federally qualified health center affiliated with Wayne Memorial Health System, offers certain physician groups financial incentives, such as absorbing the cost of malpractice insurance.

      “We are very pleased to have Doctors Mencia, Hoon Yoo and Catalina Dinu, along with Nurse Midwives Pat Konzman and Sheela Porter-Smith join us,” said Frederick Jackson, executive director of CHC.  He noted that Porter-Smith comes on board next week. “Women’s Health Care currently delivers all the babies at Wayne Memorial Hospital, and without them, we might lose this very important service in the community.”

      In the last two years, several area hospitals have closed their maternity units, leaving only Moses Taylor in Scranton, Geisinger Wyoming Valley in Wilkes Barre and Wayne Memorial in Honesdale offering labor and delivery services in northeastern Pennsylvania. In 2008, Women’s Health Care delivered 345 infants at Wayne Memorial Hospital.

      “We have extremely good outcomes,” added Dr. Mencia, “especially with high-risk cases. We have very good relationships with neonatal intensive care units in the region.”