Nurses ask the public to sign a petition seeking to keep obstetrics care at Houlton Regional

This evening, nurses from Labor, Delivery, Recovery, and Postpartum (LDRP) unit at Houlton Regional Hospital (HRH) held a town hall meeting to address news that their hospital’s administration plans to permanently close their department and what it will mean for patients seeking obstetrics (OB) care in their region. The event was held at the Millar Civic Center in Houlton and was attended by over 200 community supporters.

“The decision to close our LDRP unit was made without including obstetrics medical professionals who know first-hand the experiences encountered that require OB emergency intervention,” said Jayme Bither Hovey, RN and a nurse for 10 years in HRH’s LDRP unit. “Without maternal OB services in Houlton, mothers and babies will travel over an hour to receive care. Some will travel and deliver without any issues. But others won’t be as fortunate. Those patients that deliver quickly, run into problems during labor, or suffer from an OB emergency and can’t get OB intervention will be the ones that we tried to prevent from suffering by keeping the LDRP unit open. We are scared for women in our community, and we are fighting for you to have the best maternal care possible.”

At the meeting, nurses invited supporters to sign a community petition with three demands of Houlton Regional Hospital:

• Cancel the closure of HRH’s LDRP department.
• Provide more transparency and accountability to the community in hospital decisions.
• Strengthen HRH’s LDRP unit for the future.

Not only is the decision to close the LDRP a danger to families having babies, but nurses believe that this decision violates state requirements, which require 120 days' notice before closing a hospital unit or department. Hospital administration only announced their plans last week and is attempting to shutter the unit in early May.

The news of this closure comes just after Mount Desert Island Hospital announced the closure of its own obstetrics unit, effective July 1, 2025, amidst a rash of several other maternal care departments closing across the state of Maine in recent years.

Maine State Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (MSNA/NNOC), an affiliate of National Nurses United (NNU), represents 4,000 nurses and caregivers from Portland to Fort Kent and nearly 70 nurses at Houlton Regional Hospital.

Maine State Nurses Association is part of National Nurses Organizing Committee, representing 4,000 nurses and other caregivers from Portland to Fort Kent. NNOC is an affiliate of National Nurses United, the largest and fastest-growing labor union of registered nurses in the United States with more than 225,000 members nationwide.