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Join Us in Advocating for Rural Maternity Care!
In October 2024 after an MAFP member notified us that Maine Health Waldo Hospital was planning to close its OB services, MAFP's Advocacy Committee wrote a letter urging the hospital to maintain those vital services in the community. Although the hospital continued with its plan to stop providing OB care, it motivated the MAFP board to investigate rural maternity care in our state. After speaking with the Northern New England Perinatal Quality Improvement Network (NNEPQIN) we learned that 9 hospitals have closed their OB service in the past 11 years (including Waldo). Inland Hospital disclosed they would also be closing their OB service in early 2025.
MAFP leaders subsequently met with stakeholders in the state, including:
- Family physicians currently practicing OB care around the state;
- The Maine Hospital Association, which has been looking at this for over a year to determine how to maintain these services in rural hospitals; and
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Lead investigators of Maine’s Rural Maternity and Obstetrics Management Strategies (RMOMS) program, who have been studying rural maternity care since 2022 and created a needs assessment in January 2024.
In response, MAFP created a Rural Maternity Care Task Force to address these issues and work to maintain full maternity care in rural areas across the state and WE NEED YOUR HELP! Below is a link to a survey that will help us determine how many MAFP members currently provide OB care and how many would provide OB care if the opportunity was available in their practice setting. If you are interested in joining the task force, please provide your information in the survey. Here is the link to the survey.
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