East Patchogue, NY-based hospital's maternity unit closing its doors

Due to declining births, East Patchogue, NY-based Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center is formally closing its 14-bed maternity unit. The closing means that women giving birth who would have gone to Brookhaven will instead go to Stony Brook University Medical Center, the county's regional maternity center, about 11 miles north. Brookhaven is in the process of converting the 14-bed unit "into 21 much-needed medical-surgical beds," said a hospital spokesman.