Greene County General Hospital will discontinue labor and delivery services Jan. 31, 2026. The decision means women will no longer be able to deliver babies locally. Most other women’s health services in the county will remain.
Hospital CEO Brenda Reetz said prenatal and postpartum care will continue through a certified nurse midwife in the clinic, along with full-spectrum women’s health services such as birth control, menopausal care and gynecological surgeries.
“We're really trying to keep that care here and keep it local, and the people really just have to go out of town when it is time for their delivery,” Reetz said.
The hospital will also continue its perinatal navigator program, which provides home visits, care coordination from preconception through 18 months postpartum, and assistance with transferring patients to hospitals where deliveries will occur.
“They've already been on the phone with all of the mothers that we have right now that are currently pregnant, talking to them about getting their plans together for where they're going to go and how we're going to get their care transferred to those facilities,” Reetz said.
With the closure of labor and delivery, Reetz said pregnant women in Greene County will need to travel approximately 30 to 45 minutes to deliver at surrounding hospitals in Daviess and Sullivan counties, Vincennes, Bloomington, Newburgh and Terre Haute. She said expectant parents should plan for their deliveries, especially during inclement weather.
“We've had a great kind of outreach from our surrounding hospitals that are wanting to support our women here and make sure that they have a place to go and that they have access to the care that they need,” Reetz said.
The hospital’s emergency department will remain prepared to respond to unexpected labor situations. The hospital’s obstetrics department director will remain with the hospital, providing monthly training to emergency room staff so they are properly prepared.
“We're just going to make sure that our staff is wholly prepared for that, that we have the tools and equipment supplies that we need to be able to provide that care,” Reetz said. “But those are going to be your very seldom sort of experiences.”
Reetz said the conversation about discontinuing the obstetrics department has been ongoing since she started in 2012. Staffing challenges were the primary reason for ending the service, including difficulty recruiting a second full-time OB physician and heavy reliance on costly agency nurses and temporary physicians.
“If you don't have the staff and you don't have the money, while it's a decision none of us wanted to make, it was kind of forced upon us because of those things,” Reetz said.
Labor and delivery services have also been a long-term financial loss for the hospital.
“We continue to see cuts to our Medicaid program,” Reetz said. “We continue to see difficulties and challenges with commercial payers not wanting to pay, underpaying us, trying to pay very low rates. And with all of that financially, OB has not supported itself for a very long time. When you couple that with all of the other cuts that are coming down the road, we need to prepare now for what's coming ahead.”
Reetz said most OB nurses have accepted new roles in the hospital in other departments. The hospital expects the OB department to remain fully staffed through January.
She said the hospital is not at risk of closure, saying the OB transition will preserve essential services throughout statewide and national financial strains.
According to Reetz, the department closure shows challenges facing rural hospitals across the state. She said continued Medicaid cuts and lack of accountability for insurance companies could cause more reductions in healthcare services.
“Everyone says they want to support the rural hospitals and the critical access hospitals, but the actions aren't there to show that they really do, and there needs to be some accountability,” Reetz said. “Until we see those changes of really increasing Medicaid reimbursement, supporting our rural hospitals the way that they should be supported and holding accountability for those payers, we're going to continue to see our communities lose access to care.”
