A community-led maternity clinic is set to open Monday inside Chilliwack General Hospital. It’s a multi-agency project that was launched to address the lack of obstetric care in the Fraser Valley.

It will be led by the Chilliwack Obstetrical Group and supported by Chilliwack Division, the Chilliwack Hospital Foundation, Fraser Health Foundation and Fraser Health.

The clinic was born out of a “vision shared by local physicians to centralize maternity care into a single, multidisciplinary hub within the hospital setting,” according to a release from the Chilliwack Hospital Foundation. 

The clinic will address the dearth of maternity care in the Fraser Health region, where the fast-growing population has outpaced the number of physicians providing such care. In 2018, the region had up to 25 physicians providing maternal care, but this number has since shrunk to around five. In December, scheduled births were diverted from Peace Arch and Ridge Meadows hospitals due to a shortage of OB-GYNs.

“We are seeing almost a doubling of the number of patients who are needing care for pregnancy in our community,” said Dr. Alison Henry, physician co-lead for the clinic, in a statement. 

“With the dwindling maternity-care provider numbers, we had to do something; otherwise, maternity care would not be available in Chilliwack.”

Fundraising for the clinic began in December. The clinic was initially expected to open in February but the date was delayed until late spring.

In an Indigenous naming ceremony last week, it was given the title Ehó:temáwtxw, meaning “a home to wrap someone in care.” The ceremony was facilitated by Willie Charlie, a member of the First Nations Health Council and former chief of the Sts’ailes First Nation.

Charlie’s mother, Nancy Patricia Charlie, was in attendance and said she wished “there was something like this when [she] gave birth to [her] son 66 years ago.”