Starting Tuesday, January 13, there will be eight counties in northwestern Pennsylvania without a hospital where a person can give birth. Warren County is the latest addition to the region’s expanding maternity care desert.
Leaders at Warren General Hospital said they’re ending inpatient labor and delivery services because one of their two OBGYN physicians is leaving.
Hospital officials said they spent more than a year trying to fill the position. They said they used 10 recruiting agencies, contacted 28 OBGYN residency programs across the country, and reached out to every available candidate on one of the country’s top physician job boards.
“Trying to find the physicians (and) bringing them into rural Pennsylvania is always a challenge, but it's becoming more and more of a challenge every day," said Rep. Kathy Rapp, who represents Pennsylvania’s 65th House District, which includes Warren County.
Rapp said a national physician shortage means it’s especially difficult to recruit people to rural communities.
Rapp and other state lawmakers representing the maternity care desert wrote a letter to Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, for help. The letter suggests expanding the Conrad-30 program. Each year, the program allows each state to sponsor up to 30 foreign medical graduates. Rapp said that number should be higher.
“These visas are given to resident doctors who will agree to serve medically underserved areas," Rapp said. "So that is just another piece of a puzzle that could possibly provide physicians, OBGYN doctors to these rural Pennsylvania hospitals.”
Rapp said the letter also asks the federal government to expedite promised money to rural hospitals. The $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program was created under President Trump’s budget bill, also known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Pennsylvania is slated to receive $193,294,054 million over five years.
You can read the full letter below.
