The closure of a birthing center at a Damariscotta hospital is moving forward, the MaineHealth Board of Trustees announced Thursday, despite months of community opposition and concern about worsening health access for rural Mainers.
In a statement Thursday, MaineHealth announced it would transition inpatient labor and delivery services from Lincoln Hospital to Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick beginning Dec. 18.
As part of the plan, the board also committed that MaineHealth will not close any additional labor and delivery centers in the statewide health network in the next two years. The closure of the Lincoln unit marks the 12th birthing center to close in Maine since 2015, and it leaves Lincoln County, as well as neighboring Waldo and Sagadahoc counties, without any operating birthing units.
“We pursued every reasonable path we could identify because this decision was never about whether labor and delivery matters — it absolutely does,” MaineHealth CEO Andrew Mueller said in a press statement. “It came down to one responsibility: determining whether we could continue providing safe, reliable care for every mother and every baby, every day and every night.”
Mueller added that providing this care “requires highly specialized teams that are available around the clock and prepared to respond immediately to routine deliveries and unexpected emergencies. We concluded that we could no longer consistently ensure that level of staffing and clinical coverage at Lincoln Hospital over the long term.”
Comprehensive prenatal and postpartum care will continue at Lincoln Hospital, which also plans to expand local gynecologic outpatient and surgical services.
Save Miles Labor and Delivery, a local group that organized in opposition to the planned closure, wrote on social media after the announcement, “One of the most harmful decisions our community will ever see. Cowardice. Plain and simple.”
“They have ignored the voice of our governor, politicians on all sides, the local ambulance service, businesses, far and wide, and they are creating a maternity desert in Lincoln County,” they added. “This isn’t a hospital, it’s a morgue.”
Gov. Janet Mills sent a letter to the chair of the board of trustees last week asking the hospital to push the decision back two years in order to “meaningfully engage the community on the issues at hand” and to “allow for full consideration of alternatives to closure,” the Press Herald reported.
The decision also comes one day after Lincoln County resident Corinna Stum filed a lawsuit against MaineHealth seeking to prevent the closure.
Stum, who is pregnant and scheduled to deliver at Lincoln Hospital in January, asked for an emergency injunction while the court assesses whether the nonprofit violated its legal obligation to serve the public and was, as the lawsuit alleges, non-transparent in its review process.
Under the consolidation plan, the board notes that Lincoln and Mid Coast hospitals “will operate as one coordinated regional OB/GYN and certified nurse midwife team, giving patients access to a broader clinical team while allowing them to receive all care other than labor and delivery close to home.”
Mid Coast Hospital is situated 24 miles south of the Miles Campus in Damariscotta, a 40-minute drive along Route 1 that can become very congested during the summer months.
MaineHealth notes that patients who prefer to deliver at Pen Bay Hospital in Rockport or another hospital of their choosing “will also be supported in transferring their obstetrical care.”
In the wake of MaineHealth’s announcement this past spring that it was deciding whether to close the unit, a group of community members formed The Miles Delivers Action Coalition, which conducted extensive independent research into the hospital’s claims of lower birth volumes and challenges with workforce recruitment, as well as hospital finances, demographic trends, available funding opportunities and more.
The coalition also hosted a rally and march in Portland on Saturday, which drew nurses, doctors, activists and state leaders, including Democratic gubernatorial nominee Hannah Pingree and U.S. Senate nominee Troy Jackson.
In a statement Thursday, Pingree said she disagreed with the board’s decision.
“Moms, babies and families in Lincoln County will suffer for it. Women will still be giving birth, just farther from home, with less time to spare and fewer safety nets if something goes wrong,” she said.
Pingree said if elected she would bring physicians, hospital leaders, physicians, families, and state policy experts together “to develop a real plan for how we maintain maternity care across this state, ensuring the safety of moms and babies,” including her promise of a one-year moratorium on labor and delivery closures on Day One.
“Families in Maine deserve better than a system that closes doors one county at a time,” she added.
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