Please reconsider the recent decision to close Delta Health's Labor and Delivery Unit, affectionately known as Stork's Landing.

We, the undersigned members of the Delta County community, understand to the best of our ability the challenges Delta Health faces with recent impositions of increased liability requirements placed on the OB unit. That being said, as trusted stewards of healthcare for our rural region, your actions have profound safety impacts on Delta County families.

Critical Risks of Emergency Transfers

As clearly highlighted in the articles recently given to the board by Dr. Lebsack and Dr. Jimenez (also linked below), when rural L&D units close, the absence of timely and accessible care increases the risk of emergencies occurring outside of hospital settings—whether a mother plans a hospital or home birth. Studies show the increased risk of complications when hospital transfer is greater than 30 minutes. With drive times in our county exceeding an hour—and in some cases, more than two hours—emergency transfers can become high-stakes situations where every minute counts.

The Creation of a Maternal Healthcare Desert

Closure of the L&D unit would turn Delta County into a “maternal health care desert.” According to the March of Dimes, a maternal care desert is defined as any county without a hospital offering obstetric care and with scarce access to perinatal providers. Rural Colorado already suffers from the nation’s largest concentration of maternal care deserts, and the closure of your unit would compound these disparities by leaving local families with extremely limited options and increasing the physical, financial, and emotional burdens for pregnant women.

Recent research highlights the dire consequences of such closures. Maternity ward shutdowns in rural areas have led to higher rates of out-of-hospital births, increased NICU admissions, and more frequent emergency situations during transit. These deserts have ripple effects: they force families to relocate, make recruitment and retention of medical staff more difficult, and lower birth rates can threaten the long-term economic and social stability of the entire region.

We Urge Your Leadership

We recognize the challenges rural hospitals face. However, national health authorities and rural obstetric care experts agree that creative solutions and partnerships can help sustain small L&D units, even in the face of financial difficulties. We implore you to collaborate with the community and state officials to explore these options rather than take an action that will have dangerous, far-reaching effects.

Please reconsider the closure of Delta Health’s Labor and Delivery Unit—for the health, safety, and future of Delta County families. Our community depends on your leadership.

*For peer-reviewed evidence, official reports, and robust journalism documenting the consequences of maternity unit closures in rural areas, please see:

• Obstetric care continues to vanish from rural areas (Center for Health Journalism, 2025)
• The effect of rural hospital closures on maternal and infant health (National Institutes of Health, 2023)
• Maternity ward closures exacerbating health disparities (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 2024)
• Closing rural labor and delivery services hurts babies (STAT News, 2023)
• Stopping the Loss of Rural Maternity Care (Center for Healthcare Quality & Payment Reform, 2025)
• Where you live matters: Maternity care in Colorado (March of Dimes)
• Most Rural Hospitals Have Closed Their Maternity Wards, Study Finds (New York Times, 2024)
• A maternal care desert: Providing health care in rural Craig, Colorado (UCHealth, 2023)
• Association of Driving Distance to Maternity Hospitals and Adverse Maternal and Infant Outcomes (PubMed, 2022)