AUGUSTA, Maine — Assistant Senate Republican Leader Matt Harrington is urging MaineHealth to halt any immediate decision to eliminate labor and delivery services at Lincoln Hospital’s Miles Campus in Damariscotta, saying another rural maternity ward closure would further erode healthcare access for Maine families and place additional strain on neighboring hospitals.
In a letter dated Aug. 3 to the MaineHealth Board of Trustees, Harrington asked the healthcare system to reconsider its plans and pause any final decision while state leaders, healthcare providers, and community stakeholders work together on a long-term solution.
“The loss of maternity care in rural Maine has reached a troubling point,” Harrington wrote. “Over the past decade, community after community has watched these essential services disappear, forcing expectant mothers to travel farther from home during one of the most important moments of their lives.”
Harrington, a Republican representing Senate District 33 and serving as Assistant Senate Republican Leader in the 132nd Legislature, has increasingly focused on issues affecting rural communities, including healthcare access, emergency services, and economic development.
His letter comes amid growing concern over the steady decline of maternity care across Maine. Since 2015, at least 11 hospital labor and delivery units have closed, leaving many rural families with significantly longer travel times to deliver their babies. Healthcare providers have cited declining birth rates, workforce shortages, rising operating costs, and inadequate reimbursement rates, particularly under MaineCare, as major factors behind the closures.
The proposed closure at Lincoln Hospital has become the latest flashpoint in that debate, prompting bipartisan concern from lawmakers and local officials who warn the loss would leave Midcoast families with fewer options for obstetric care while increasing pressure on surrounding hospitals and emergency medical services.
Harrington acknowledged the financial realities facing hospitals but argued they should not automatically result in the permanent loss of critical healthcare services.
“I understand the difficult realities facing healthcare providers today,” he wrote. “Workforce shortages, financial pressures, and declining birth rates have created challenges unlike any we have seen before. Yet those realities also demand innovation, partnership, and creative problem-solving, not the permanent loss of services that many communities may never regain.”
Rather than proceeding with a closure, Harrington asked MaineHealth to suspend any final action regarding the future of the Miles Campus labor and delivery unit.
He said a temporary pause would allow MaineHealth officials, state leaders, healthcare professionals, and community stakeholders to pursue sustainable solutions that preserve maternal care while addressing the hospital’s operational and financial challenges.
“Every child deserves the opportunity to enter the world with safe, accessible care close to home,” Harrington wrote. “Every family deserves confidence that quality maternity services will be available when they are needed.”
Harrington also said protecting access to maternity care is an investment in the future of rural Maine and pledged to work with MaineHealth to identify practical solutions that strengthen, rather than diminish, healthcare access.
The letter follows weeks of mounting concern over Lincoln Hospital’s labor and delivery unit. Legislative Republicans have argued that years of inadequate MaineCare reimbursement and financial pressures created by state healthcare policies have contributed to the crisis facing rural hospitals. Democrats, meanwhile, have said preserving access to maternity care should be a bipartisan priority and have also urged MaineHealth to reconsider the closure.
Harrington’s appeal adds another voice to the growing chorus calling on MaineHealth to delay its decision and explore alternatives before another rural maternity unit disappears from Maine’s healthcare landscape.
