NEWTON, Iowa — The MercyOne Newton Medical Center is closing its birthing unit due to recruitment and physician workload challenges.
After Oct. 15 Jasper County won’t have a labor and delivery center, forcing expecting mothers to travel out of town.
For the past year, there have only been two obstetricians at MercyOne Newton and management recently learned one of them is leaving next month.
While labor and delivery services are performed at MercyOne Newton, the neighboring Newton Clinic supplies the physicians.
“If you're going to labor a patient, you have to be able to do a C-section within 30 minutes, and to expect one physician to stay here 24/7, 365, it is impossible to expect that,” Newton Clinic administrator Mark Thayer said.
Thayer said over the past decade he’s struggled to recruit qualified obstetricians. He even tried hiring OBGYNs at one point, but the last one left in March 2023.
“It's hard to find physicians that want to practice in Iowa. We don't have any mountains, we don't have any beaches,” Thayer said.
Thayer said across the country there’s a high demand for obstetricians, but a limited supply of them.
“There are some organizations that are offering very high salary packages that, quite honestly, we can't compete with,” Thayer said.
Patients at MercyOne Newton can keep their scheduled prenatal care appointments and scheduled delivery appointments through Oct. 15.
“This pipeline has dried up over the last few years, and I don't think it's anyone's real fault,” Thayer said. “It's just a fact of reality, and we're just unfortunately faced with a situation where we really had no choice.”
The Newton Clinic is looking at three different organizations to refer patients to once services end.
The obstetrician who is staying won’t lose their job and will continue working with the Newton Clinic’s family practice patients. The nurses employed in the birthing unit will be offered open nurse positions in the other departments, MercyOne said in a release.