Mount Desert Island Hospital announced Thursday that it will close its labor and delivery unit effective July 1 — making it the tenth Maine hospital to announce such a closure in the past decade.
Chrissi Maguire, the hospital’s president and CEO, said the primary reason was a steep decline in birth rates, which in turn made it difficult for staff to keep up with required skills.
The hospital delivered 32 babies last year — a nearly 46 percent decline from the previous year. Nine babies have been delivered so far this year. A decade ago, the hospital averaged about 100 births annually.
Maguire, who said she gave birth to both of her children at MDI Hospital, called the closure a “devastating decision.”
“I have to really bifurcate myself from that emotion and think about the health and wellness of our patients,” she told The Maine Monitor.
In addition to the declining birth rate, Maguire also cited “skyrocketing costs, a shrinking rural population, and inadequate reimbursement from federal and state sources.”
The Maine State Nurses Association said Thursday that union nurses at the hospital were “fiercely critical” of the announcement.
The news comes at a time when roughly half of Maine’s 36 hospitals do not offer birthing services.
This fits into a national trend: 537 hospitals closed their labor and delivery departments between 2010 and 2022, according to a study published in December. As of 2022, more than half of the nation’s rural hospitals did not offer labor and delivery services.
Maguire said discussions about how to prevent a potential closure began 10 months ago, when the hospital noticed a significant decline in deliveries.
Since then, she said they have held strategic planning meetings, asked for assistance from the state, worked with a regional maternal health program and coordinated with partners at Northern Light Health to figure out how to address the significant decline in births.
Then they entered the first months of 2025 with a small number of births. “We’re in this domino effect for rural maternal health and eventually we needed to make a very difficult decision,” Maguire said.
MDI Hospital has about 30 patients who are currently pregnant and will be affected by the closure, Maguire said, noting that only half of them were expected to give birth at the hospital. They called each of the patients this week and are working on a transition plan with Northern Light Health, which runs the two nearest hospitals, in Ellsworth and Bangor.
Maguire said she didn’t know how many staff would be impacted but said they would all be given the option to continue working for the MDI health system in positions that align with their expertise.
Cokie Giles, president of the Maine State Nurses Association, said the union condemns the closure.
“This is an abject failure by the hospital’s administration, particularly CEO Chrissi Maguire,” Giles said in a press release. “For the good of this community and of our state, MDIH’s OB department must remain open.”
Janice Horton, a nurse who has worked in the hospital’s obstetrics department for over three decades, called the decision short-sighted and said it was made by administrators without input from nurses and caregivers.
“Nurses are deeply concerned about the permanent, damaging effects this decision will have on families MDIH is supposed to serve in Bar Harbor and surrounding towns and outer islands,” Horton said.
The hospital responded by saying that nurses had been involved “early and meaningfully” in the process, including in meetings held from June through December.
Before official news of the closure broke, the union had scheduled a town hall meeting on Sunday to “discuss the future of our OB department.” The group still plans to hold the meeting, which is set to take place at 4 p.m. Sunday, March 30, at the Mount Desert Island YWCA at 36 Mount Desert Street in Bar Harbor.
Maguire said hospital officials had already planned on making the announcement Thursday morning and the town hall did not impact their decision.
MDI Hospital is planning to expand its emergency department to include a new room equipped with labor and delivery equipment for emergency births on the island, Maguire said.
In response to questions about why the hospital is able expand the emergency department while closing the birthing unit, Maguire said the expansion is being paid for by donations and grants that could not be repurposed, and it is in response to a community health needs assessment that highlighted a desire for better access to emergency and hospital services, primary care and mental health.
The hospital is coordinating with nearby facilities to transfer deliveries and is making plans for emergency care staff to rotate through partner hospitals to maintain their skills in labor and delivery. Maguire also said the hospital is exploring a new program that would give expectant mothers support and care coordination through prenatal, delivery, and postpartum care.
Maguire sees the statewide closures as part of a larger demographic and economic challenge.
“This is not stopping,” she said. “I am not the only hospital having these discussions.”
