The Colorado Hospital Association is warning of further cuts to services, saying the state’s hospitals lost $4 billion on Medicaid and Medicare last year and saw a 60% increase in uncompensated care and a 13% increase in operating costs.
Banner Health closed its emergency department in Loveland this month, and last week, Delta Health became Colorado’s second hospital in five months, after Arkansas Valley, to close its obstetrics unit. Half of rural Colorado is now considered a maternal care desert.
Erica Quain planned to give birth at Stork’s Landing, Delta Health’s Labor and Delivery Unit. She found out two weeks before baby number two’s due date that it was closing.
“How can they close? That’s like closing the ER,” she said…