Melanie Lekocevic reports for Columbia-Greene Media that Columbia Memorial Health is getting about $17.4 million in funding from the Statewide Health Care Facility Transformation Program, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced July 31. The money will go to “retire debt to better position the organization to modernize and right-size inpatient facilities and expand community-based outpatient services,” according to the governor’s office. Beginning October 1, pregnant women will no longer be able to give birth at Columbia Memorial Hospital in Hudson. Pregnant women will now have to travel to Albany, or Kingston, to dive birth. That decision was made based on the declining number of births at the Hudson hospital, as well as a shortage of obstetricians, Dr. Clifford J. Belden, Columbia Memorial Health's chief medical officer said. Read more about this story at HudsonValley360.com.