'We Must Pass Medicare for All,' Says Troy Jackson as 12th Maine Maternity Unit Closes in 11 Years

Democratic US Senate candidate Troy Jackson on Friday was among the Maine leaders expressing anger over the decision by MaineHealth, the state's largest nonprofit healthcare system, to close a labor and delivery unit that's crucial to families in three counties after local residents organized a monthslong grassroots effort to keep the department open.

"I'm angry," said Jackson, the former state Senate president who officially became the Democratic candidate last month. "This marks the 12th labor and delivery ward we've lost in this state since 2015."

With rural hospitals across Maine expected to continue closing—partially due to nearly $3 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade, which were included in President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act along with tax cuts for the wealthy—Jackson repeated his call for a government-funded universal healthcare system.

"It's past time that we fix our broken, profit-centered healthcare system that leaves many of us struggling to get care, and most of us struggling to pay for it when we do," said Jackson. "We must pass Medicare for All."

MaineHealth's Board of Trustees voted Thursday in favor of closing the labor and delivery unit at Lincoln Hospital on the health network's Miles Campus in the coastal town of Damariscotta. The decision leaves Lincoln, Waldo, and Sagadahoc counties without any labor and delivery units, and leaves half of the state's 34 hospitals without birthing wards.

The hospital system said it had reached the decision because it cannot "continue providing safe, reliable care for every mother and every baby, every day and every night," according to CEO Andrew Mueller.

Labor and delivery "requires highly specialized teams that are available around the clock and prepared to respond immediately to routine deliveries and unexpected emergencies," said Mueller. "We concluded that we could no longer consistently ensure that level of staffing and clinical coverage at Lincoln Hospital over the long term.”

Cindy Wade, president of Lincoln Hospital, told community members ahead of the vote that the potential closure was "not driven by finance," while acknowledging that staffing is a problem for the facility.

The day before the decision was announced, a woman named Corinna Stum, who had been set to deliver her baby at Miles in January—a month after the unit is set to close—filed a lawsuit in an effort to stop the closure. Stum requested an emergency injunction while the court determines whether MaineHealth violated its obligation to serve the public and be transparent in its review process

A grassroots organization called Miles Delivers Action Coalition, started by three women from the area, has held rallies alongside Jackson, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Hannah Pingree, and other local leaders, as well as working with clinicians to determine how the Miles Campus could deliver sustainable care for parents and babies and finding obstetricians who would be willing to work at the hospital.

The group also examined the finances of the $4 billion healthcare network, finding that the Miles Campus outperformed its parent system in terms of profitability and that deliveries at the hospital are on the rise, despite declining birth rates nationwide.

"A CEO paid $2.2 million should be expected to find solutions, not simply eliminate services," said the coalition as it rallied 10,000 supporters in a matter of months to help convince the hospital to keep the unit open.

When the coalition reached out to MaineHealth with its ideas for continuing to provide maternity services, the company argued that pregnant patients will be able to travel to Mid Coast Hospital for their deliveries—a 26-mile, 43-minute drive from Damariscotta.

When announcing the closure, MaineHealth also suggested families could also transfer their obstetrical care to Pen Bay Hospital, which is roughly the same distance from the town.

Dr. Tim Goltz, a family physician at Miles, told NPR earlier this week: "There's no doubt in my mind that if OB goes away at Miles, that there will be mothers and babies who die because of that decision. The literature is very clear that the further you have to travel to deliver a baby, the higher the risk is of serious complications and death. "

Miles Delivers Action Coalition said the vote on Thursday resulted in "one of the most harmful decisions our community will ever see," and accused MaineHealth of "cowardice."

“They have ignored the voice of our governor, politicians on all sides, the local ambulance service, businesses, far and wide, and they are creating a maternity desert in Lincoln County,” the group said. “This isn’t a hospital, it’s a morgue.”

Former US Senate candidate and organizer Jordan Wood, also an advocate for Medicare for All, said decisions like MaineHealth's would lead Mainers to "lose trust and faith in democracy."

"Millennials, women, moms, young moms, pregnant women organized in our community the minute that news broke that there was a possibility that Miles would close," said Wood. "It can feel like a failure, but it's not... We will fix this problem. This is a setback, it's not a failure."

"There is no way to make labor and delivery profitable," said Wood. "We are living in an absolutely broken healthcare system by profit. By for-profit health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies that only make money off of us being sick... This is the reminder for so many of us about why this healthcare system is so corrupt and broken and in need of a total overhaul."