Oregon’s U.S. senators are urging Saint Alphonsus Health System to keep the birth center open at the Baker City hospital for at least six months while they work to find solutions to nurse staffing shortages that prompted officials to announce the center would close July 30.

Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both Democrats, sent a letter Monday, July 10 to Odette Bolano, president and CEO of Saint Alphonsus Health Systems, which operates hospitals in Baker City, Ontario, Nampa and Boise.

The senators asked for a response to their letter by July 17, citing the “urgency of this situation and the imminent closure of the maternity center.”

Hospital officials announced June 22 that the birth center in Baker City would close July 30. Saint Alphonsus Health System is part of Trinity Health, based in Michigan.

Hospital officials cited the difficulty in finding enough nurses to staff the center, as well as a recent decline in the number of babies delivered there.

The senators are calling on Saint Alphonsus to keep the birth center open “to let the Eastern Oregon community work with federal and state agencies to develop alternative solutions,” according to a Monday press release.

In their letter to Bolano, Wyden and Merkley wrote: “We have heard from doctors and nurses, parents and expectant parents, and large Baker City-based employers about the importance of having maternity care and birthing services available in Baker City for the residents’ safety and wellbeing. We urge you to continue labor and delivery services for an additional six months while the community works to fill the substantial gap in local maternity care. In the meantime, we have identified several resources to help you keep your maternity center open.”

In their letter, the senators offered federal, state and local nursing resources to help Saint Alphonsus continue to provide safe and stable maternity care beyond July 30, including gathering financial support from large employers such as Beef Northwest Feeders, streamlining licensing for RNs, and deploying nurses from the federal United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.

“The community highly values the maternity care provided by the hospital and is willing to work with you to keep the services in place,” the senators wrote in the letter.

The hospital’s two advisory boards, and the Oregon Nurses Association, which represents nurses who work in the birth center, have all publicly opposed the July 30 closure.

We write to encourage Trinity Health and the Saint Alphonsus Health System to reverse their decision to cease all labor and delivery services at the maternity center at Saint Alphonsus Hospital in Baker City, Oregon beginning on July 31, and instead continue services for a period of at least six months to allow the community to work on alternatives to support expectant parents.

As you are all well aware, physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses and expectant parents were stunned by Saint Alphonsus’ recent decision to abruptly cease labor and delivery services at Baker City due to staffing shortages. The community highly values the maternity care provided by the hospital and is willing to work with you to keep the services in place. We understand staffing issues have been challenges for quite some time, yet the decision to quickly close the facility has left many in the community at a loss.

We have heard from doctors and nurses, parents and expectant parents, and large Baker City-based employers about the importance of having maternity care and birthing services available in Baker City for the residents’ safety and wellbeing. We urge you to continue labor and delivery services for an additional six months while the community works to fill the substantial gap in local maternity care. In the meantime, we have identified several resources to help you keep your maternity center open.

Baker County residents have relayed their concerns about the impacts of families having to travel 45 miles to La Grande, through a mountain pass that can be treacherous in winter, if open at all, in order to receive maternity care. We have heard from new mothers whose lives were saved because they had access to excellent care at St. Alphonsus Hospital during difficult births. Employers like Beef Northwest and the Baker School District have added that lack of quality maternity care services will make it nearly impossible to attract and retain qualified staff with growing families.

Since learning of the imminent closure of the maternity center, we have worked to identify federal, state, and local resources to help St. Alphonsus continue to provide safe and stable maternity care beyond July 30th. After discussions with multiple federal and state agencies, local businesses, and community residents, we have identified the following resources to provide the nursing services that we understand St. Alphonsus needs to keep its maternity center open:

• United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps: The federal United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps has the capacity to deploy RNs trained in obstetrics care to St. Alphonsus. These federal resources can be deployed if all State resources have been exhausted. We urge St. Alphonsus to work with the State to determine whether all staffing options have been explored. If it is appropriate to deploy federal resources from the United States Public Health Services Commissioned Corps, we stand ready to assist in this process.

• Local Business Support: Beef Northwest Feeders, one of the largest private employers in Baker County, sent us a letter outlining their commitment to support St. Alphonsus and find solutions to keep its maternity center open. We have attached this letter for your reference and urge you to work with Beef Northwest Feeders and other local businesses on options to keep your maternity center open.

• Streamlined Licensing of RNs: Governor Kotek’s team is willing to connect out-of-state RNs, including from out-of-state contract nurse agencies, with the Oregon Board of Nursing to expedite the nurse licensing process. We urge you to work with the Governor’s office to streamline the nurse licensing process for out-of-state RNs you need to keep your maternity center open.

We urge you to pursue all resources available to you as well as the resources we have outlined above and to keep the St. Alphonsus maternity center open for an additional six months. Given the urgency of this situation and the imminent closure of the maternity center, we request an update and response to this letter by Monday, July 17. Thank you for your commitment to serving the health care needs of Baker County families.