
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 24, 1990                   TAG: 9006240256
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: CLIFTON FORGE                                LENGTH: Medium

WILL THE BABY WAIT FOR A LONG DRIVE?

Carla Mills lives only three miles from the hospital where her first baby was born. But when she delivers her second child this January, she will have to come to Roanoke, an hour away.

"It's hard on you emotionally, knowing you'll have to go that far," Mills says. "You're just praying and hoping something doesn't go wrong."

Mills, 36, had been a patient of Dr. Michael Lassere, an OB-GYN who came to town nearly five years ago. When Lassere announced last month that he was giving up obstetrics, it meant women like Mills had to find someone else to follow them through their pregnancies.

The same was true for patients of Dr. Beulah Roblete, Alleghany County's only other obstetrician. Roblete told patients she wouldn't be able to carry the load herself and that she, too, would stop delivering babies until at least one more obstetrician could be recruited.

Mills had thought about getting a doctor in Lexington, which would be a shorter drive than Roanoke. But she decided the better-equipped facilities that Roanoke could offer would be worth the longer trip.

Helene Dobbs, whose 2-year-old daughter, Kayla, was delivered by Roblete, also is thinking about traveling to Roanoke even though she's only about a 30-minute drive from Lexington.

"I wonder whether I would make it to Roanoke," says Dobbs, who remembers that Kayla was born less than three hours after she checked into the hospital. If labor with her second baby is any shorter, Dobbs worries, she could end up delivering on the way to Roanoke.

"I'm very upset," says Vicky Stanley, a health department patient who expects to deliver her baby this January at Roanoke Memorial Hospital. "It's hard on somebody like me." Stanley doesn't drive and her husband has the family car during the day. She's worried about making arrangements to get to Roanoke when she goes into labor.

"I'm not sure how I'm going to get there," Stanley says. "It could be bad weather. You know how January is."

Angela Price says she'll miss the convenience of being able to see Roblete if she becomes worried about something.

"I felt like if I had a problem, all I had to do was call and she would take me right in," says Price, who lives about 10 minutes from Roblete's office. "Now I face an hour's drive to Lexington. It's bad. I'm not happy about it at all. You never know when you're going to come across a complication in pregnancy."

by CNB