If you plan to have a baby and live in Southeast Colorado, you’ll have to take a road trip to the hospital. This week, the Arkansas Valley Regional Medical Center in La Junta announced that the Obstetrics/Gynecology unit will close on April 30th due to a nearly $200,000 monthly loss.
AVRMC CEO Andy Flemer first announced the move at a La Junta Chamber of Commerce meeting but attended Monday night’s La Junta City Council meeting to explain it further and answer questions.
City Attorney Erin Harris explained the necessity of communication between the hospital and the city dates to a contract in 1998 between the hospital and the Mennonite Church.
“The reason isn’t because the city holds anything over the hospital, although the contract states during consolidation in 1998, there was a 25-million-dollar mortgage given by the Mennonite Corporation that is has both a separate name but is was the Mennonite Church that had a hold with the hospital we well as the city of La Junta but there are no default circumstances within the contract where the city takes action.”
Harris finished by stating that it is her guess that what happened in 1998 was that the hospital was so important to the city that the city must have expressed interest in being kept up to date with its financial circumstances.
Flemer said it’s been hard to keep the OB/GYN program open with a gap of about $200,000 a month. They cannot continue to staff the department. He said there would be no lay-offs as a result of that decision, that other positions in the hospital would be identified and offered to staff working in Obstetrics/Gynecology.
Flemer told the council that the hospital board discussed the possible closure in November of last year but didn’t want that to happen during the winter. To buy some time, Flemer said doctors took a 22% pay cut effective January 1. “It’s helped a little, but not enough.”
Funding challenges at AVRMC have been exacerbated due to the large population of Medicaid patients seen in La Junta.
La Junta Mayor Joe Ayala asked Flemer if what happened in Lamar with the closing and then re-opening of their OB unit could happen here.
Flemer explained that Lamar’s hospital is structured differently than La Junta’s. Lamar is part of a special health district. The nursing home in La Junta is structured in this manner and supported by the district and the tax revenue collected from sales tax. La Junta City Attorney Erin Harris is looking at the documents and investigating whether or not this might be an option for La Junta.
Because “babies happen” the La Junta hospital has been preparing on what to do if they have a mother in labor come into the Emergency Department. Flemer’s staff has been training on how to deliver and stabilize a mother in that situation. But sending them onto Pueblo presents its own challenge. According to Flemer, Parkview has suffered staffing issues too. What used to be 18-19 OB/GYN doctors on staff has fallen now to around four.
La Junta Fire Chief Brad Davidson has been training his staff to deliver babies, too. He felt that sending them by helicopter was risky and said only fixed-wing aircraft could be part of that transport. That takes more time, and time might be needed to deliver a baby safely.
Mayor Joe Ayala wrapped the meeting and nearly hour and a half discussion at the meeting to say he’s written a letter to Colorado Governor Jared Polis and has been in talks with Representative Ty Winter on solutions.
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