MaineHealth board votes to close birthing center at Lincoln Hospital in Damariscotta
The MaineHealth board of trustees voted on Thursday to close the Lincoln Hospital birthing center in Damariscotta, despite calls from politicians for a delay and a grassroots campaign urging the health system to keep the ward open.
Labor and delivery services at the hospital will transition to MaineHealth Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick starting on Dec. 18, according to a news release from the health system. The maternity ward is poised to become the 12th to shutter in Maine since 2015, as the state deals with low birth volumes and workforce shortages.
The board “committed that MaineHealth will not close any additional labor and delivery programs anywhere in the health system during the next two years,” MaineHealth said in a news release. It also said the board “calls upon the next governor and Legislature” to “identify solutions to the challenges of labor and delivery services in rural communities.”
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A lawsuit filed against MaineHealth on Wednesday by Corrinna Stum, a Newcastle resident who is pregnant and due to give birth in January, attempted to prevent the board’s vote. Joe Baldacci, one of the attorneys representing Stum, said a Lincoln County Superior Court justice denied that request.
The lawsuit, which is also seeking a permanent injunction against the health system to prevent it from closing the maternity ward, will move forward, Baldacci said on Thursday. The lawsuit alleges that MaineHealth failed to follow state requirements to close the birthing center.
The vote to close comes after a more than two-month campaign by the grassroots group Miles Delivers Action Coalition — Miles was the previous name of the hospital — and requests by Gov. Janet Mills, U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, and all three major gubernatorial candidates to delay closing the birthing center or keep it operating.
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Moira Rose Richards, one of the coalition’s leaders, said in an interview Thursday that she was “disgusted” by the MaineHealth board’s decision. Richards said healthcare providers who work for Lincoln Hospital, including doctors at the hospital, supported efforts to keep the maternity ward open and offered solutions to the difficulties in attracting and retaining employees.
“They have failed our community,” Richards said of the board. “They chose to ignore everybody. They chose to ignore the solutions.”
The news release from MaineHealth said that “despite sustained recruitment efforts — including many of the approaches suggested by community members during public listening sessions and in written submissions — Lincoln Hospital has not been able to establish the stable physician and clinical staffing needed to safely support a reliable 24-hour labor and delivery program.”
Dr. Andrew Mueller, MaineHealth CEO, said in a statement that “we pursued every reasonable path we could identify because this decision was never about whether labor and delivery matters — it absolutely does.”
He said that “providing obstetrical 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.”
Hospital officials have previously told the Portland Press Herald that they currently employ one part-time obstetrician and two midwives, while full staffing would be four OB/GYNs and four midwives.
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Two doctors who work for MaineHealth told the Press Herald in July that the hospital should take a closer look at alternative staffing models, such as primary care doctors trained to deliver babies, to keep the birthing center operating.
“MaineHealth had a choice, and I believe they made the wrong one,” Hannah Pingree, the Democratic nominee for governor, said in a statement Thursday. “Moms, babies and families in Lincoln County will suffer for it.”
Rick Bennett, an independent candidate for governor, called the vote “deeply disappointing.”
“The families who are losing this care are being asked to shoulder the burden of a failing system,” Bennett said in a statement.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Bobby Charles has also said he was opposed to the birthing center closing.
Anna Parker, spokesperson for Mills, said in a statement on Thursday that the governor is “deeply disappointed” in the decision. Closing the birthing center would “make it harder for the state and region to attract and retain families, support strong schools and sustain local businesses,” Parker said.
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The next closest hospitals with maternity wards are Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick and MaineHealth Pen Bay Hospital in Rockport. From Damariscotta, the drive to either of those hospitals could take 35 to 45 minutes, or longer depending on traffic or weather delays.
Maternity services aside from delivery will continue at Lincoln Hospital, MaineHealth said. The hospital will do “comprehensive prenatal and postpartum care” and have expanded gynecologic services as part of a regional model collaborating with Mid Coast Hospital, according to the release.
“This new model is designed to strengthen women’s health care for Lincoln County over the long term,” Cindy Wade, president of Lincoln Hospital, said in a statement.
The collaboration with Mid Coast Hospital means “we can continue providing prenatal, postpartum and gynecologic care locally, while connecting patients to a larger clinical team when it is time to give birth,” Wade said.
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Joe Lawlor writes about health and human services for the Press Herald. A 24-year newspaper veteran, Lawlor has worked in Ohio, Michigan and Virginia before relocating to Maine in 2013 to join the Press. More by Joe Lawlor
