Baker County Commissioner Michelle Kaseberg said she was stunned when she heard what Tony Swart had just said during commissioners’ March 5 meeting.

Happily stunned.

Swart is the administrator for Saint Alphonsus Medical Center-Baker City.

Baker County’s only hospital closed its intensive care unit in January 2023.

In June of that year, hospital officials announced that the birthing center would also close, meaning that, for the first time in more than a century, the county lacked a hospital where a woman could give birth.

Despite widespread community opposition, and the intervention of U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, who helped arrange to bring in federal nurses to help deal with the nursing shortage that hospital officials cited as a main reason for the closure, the maternity ward closed in August.

For a year and a half, pregnant women have had to drive at least 45 miles to deliver their babies in a hospital.

Many chose Grande Ronde Hospital in La Grande. The number of births there from January through September 2024 was 237, compared with 189 and 187 for the same period in 2023 and 2022.

Others made the even longer drives to Ontario or Boise.

Swart’s statements, both during the commissioners’ meeting and during an interview later in the day with the Baker City Herald, should raise optimism about the county’s health care situation.

Swart told commissioners he is “committed to a build-back plan” to return maternity care to the hospital.

He said much the same in the interview with the Herald.

Nor was that the only positive news.

Swart also said that he anticipates the hospital will open an “intermediate care unit” between May and July. He described this as “very similar” to the intensive care unit that closed two years ago.

Swart didn’t have a timeframe for reopening the birthing center.

But he said recent conversations with doctors who would offer obstetrics have been positive. Physicians from Eastern Oregon Medical Associates, who previously delivered babies, opposed the closure in 2023 and also gave up their privileges to treat patients in the hospital.

Dr. Neil Carroll of EOMA wrote in a statement to the Herald: “We feel that birthing services are an essential need in our community and we remain hopeful that these services can be restored to Saint Alphonsus Baker City.”

The closures of the ICU and birthing center in 2023 continue to sting.

Residents were understandably upset about losing core functions of a hospital, particularly given that hospitals in much smaller communities — John Day and Enterprise — continue to deliver babies.

But based on Swart’s statements this week, the future looks far better than the recent past.

As results from a health care survey last fall show, a significant percentage of respondents are interested in the possibility of forming a public health district, supported by an increase in property taxes, to offer hospital services. That’s the model that both Blue Mountain Hospital in John Day and Wallowa Memorial in Enterprise use.

Investigating those and other potential options is still a worthwhile endeavor.

But the better, and almost certainly less expensive, option is to have Saint Alphonsus resume the vital role it has fulfilled for Baker County, a role that must include delivering babies.

Jayson Jacoby is the editor of the Baker City Herald. Contact him at 541-518-2088 or jjacoby@bakercityherald.com.