Roughly 200 nurses, parents, and community members packed a town hall meeting in Houlton Wednesday night to urge Houlton Regional Hospital to reverse its decision to close the labor and delivery unit next month.
Natalie Rush said she's been a labor and delivery nurse at the hospital for four years.
"When they announced the closure of the unit, my mind immediately went to the deliveries I experienced that will stick with me for the rest of my life," she said. "The women who had bad hemorrhages. The uterine ruptures. The preterm deliveries. ... The babies that needed resuscitation."
Korinne Matthews shared her harrowing birthing experience. She went into labor early and delivered at Houlton Regional Hospital because a transport to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, nearly 2 hours away, was deemed too risky.
"If it was not for the OB labor and delivery staff at Houlton Regional Hospital, the end result would have been much different, and I might have been burying my son rather than spending a month in the NICU with him," she said.
The closest labor unit is nearly an hour away in Presque Isle, and many at the meeting said they fear the long travel time will endanger mothers and babies.
Local nurses are circulating a petition to urge Houlton Regional Hospital to cancel the closure of the labor and delivery unit, which is scheduled for May 2.
Hospital officials have said the closure is unavoidable due to low birth volumes.
It's the latest in a string of labor and delivery unit closures, with Mount Desert Island Hospital recently announcing it will end labor and delivery services July 1.
