$ 1.2 Million In State Money Doesn't Keep Aspirus UP Birthing Center Open

The 2025 Michigan budget granted Upper Peninsula health care providers substantial amounts to keep facilities open.  Aspirus Ironwood just closed their birthing center because they are unable to staff it.  Expectant Western UP mothers will now have to travel to Wisconsin to give birth:

https://www.freep.com/story/news/health/2025/09/08/aspirus-ironwood-hospital-closes-birthing-unit-shortage-cuts-michigan/85997851007/

Hospital in Michigan's U.P. to close birthing unit, widening gaps in access to care
By Kristen Jordan Shamus & Beki San Martin - September 8, 2025
Detroit Free Press

*    Aspirus Health plans to shutter the birthing unit at its Aspirus Ironwood Hospital in December because it says it cannot recruit enough staff to the area.
*    Aspirus Ironwood Hospital got $1.2 million in the fiscal year 2025 state budget to provide obstetric and gynecological care.

Aspirus Health will eliminate labor and delivery services at its Ironwood Hospital starting Dec. 31 — a decision its leaders say is driven mostly by an inability to draw adequate staffing to the region, which is in the rural, far western end of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, near the border with Wisconsin.

"Despite years of aggressive recruiting, Aspirus has been unable to secure a full maternal care team in Ironwood," the health system said in a statement. "Since June 2024, the hospital has operated with just one full-time family practice/obstetrics physician, making 24/7/365 coverage unsustainable."

It means that pregnant women will have to make the 45-mile drive to Tamarack Health Ashland Medical Center in Ashland, Wisconsin, which is the next closest hospital with a labor and delivery unit, or give birth in the Ironwood hospital's emergency department or at home.

“Nurses are outraged that Aspirus is cutting even more health care for the U.P. and we are extremely worried about women who will now have to drive another 45 minutes to Ashland or another Wisconsin hospital to have their baby — or those who end up in an emergency,” said obstetrics nurse Ashley Thompson in a statement.

“Our emergency department nurses are amazing but they do not have the specialized training to deal with a problematic childbirth, when both lives are at risk.”

Aspirus Ironwood Hospital was awarded $1.2 million in the 2025 state fiscal year budget for obstetric and gynecological care, but still is shuttering that line of service.

State Sen. Ed McBroom, a Republican from Waucedah Township, crossed party lines to vote in favor of the budget bill. At the time, he lauded the funding boost for Aspirus Health as well as a $2 million allocation to Munising Memorial Hospital, saying in a statement: “I am proud the U.P. team has been able to get support from my colleagues on several very critical hospital and infrastructure needs."

It is unclear whether the hospital accepted the money, and if it did, how it was used. Aspirus Health spokesperson Jenn Jenich-Laplander did not respond to questions from the Detroit Free Press about the funding boost.

McBroom and other U.P. lawmakers issued a news release Sept. 8, saying they are outraged by the decision.

“No one called or gave notice to any of us about this before it happened," McBroom said in a statement. "The U.P. — bigger than at least six states — is left with six places to have a baby other than your home or car.”

State Rep. Greg Markkanen, R-Hancock, called it a betrayal "by a company that has promised to provide services to them and received state dollars to do so.”

Jenich-Laplander told the Detroit Free Press that the change isn't expected to lead to job cuts. The Ironwood hospital, she said, will continue to provide prenatal and postnatal care after the labor and delivery unit closes.

"No one will lose their job as part of this transition," she said in a Sept. 5 email message. "We are providing personalized support to help any impacted employees transition into departments where their expertise and training are already recognized."

A 'perfect storm' drives crisis of care

The Association of American Medical Colleges predicts the shortage of obsetricians and gynecologists nationally will only deepen in the coming years, as the current workforce ages and the population of women in their childbearing years grows in a political climate that is driving burnout and fear of litigation among specialists who provide that care.

Drawing obstetricians and gynecologists to rural areas is a particular challenge, said Laura Appell, senior vice president of the Michigan Health and Hospital Association, because the volume of deliveries is lower, and those units must be staffed 24/7, even if there isn't a single child delivered on a given day. It is often among the first targets when administrators cut hospital budgets.

"It is a pretty expensive service when you have a relatively small population, and the population could be shrinking, as it is in many rural areas," she said.

When women have to drive farther to get obstetric care, it comes at a cost, Appell said: “Every 15 more minutes people have to travel for care, the tougher it is to keep them as healthy as possible."

But when labor and delivery units close, it often leads to an even bigger gap in access to care — and it affects far more than just pregnant women.

For doctors, "if you don’t have a place for folks to deliver babies, it’s really hard for you to stay in business near that hospital," Appell said. "If the physician decides to relocate to another part of the state where they are doing labor and delivery ... that takes away the gynecology access for all women in that area.

"It’s not just pregnant people who are affected. It’s everybody who is trying to get their annual or every-two-year screening pap smear and who need other reproductive health care. That gynecologist is gone because there is no place for them to admit patients."

Since 2018, 12 hospitals in Michigan either closed or are expected to close obstetric services, according to data from the Michigan Health and Hospital Association.

Among them is Aspirus Keewenaw Hospital, which shuttered its OB-Gyn services in December. MyMichigan Medical Center Tawas closed for deliveries over the summer.

Aspirus Ironwood plans to shutter its birthing unit in December and Munson Grayling Hospital is expected to close its labor and delivery units in 2026.

“Other rural hospitals might not be equipped to take the overflow, so there’s a horrible cascading effect where people can’t get care in their own community," said Amy Zaagman, executive director of the Michigan Council for Maternal and Child Health.

She called it the "perfect storm" in rural communities, driving a crisis in access to care.

"They are getting paid on services provided," she said. "If the birth rate is declining, and there are fewer births to support labor and delivery services in hospitals, then the service costs hospitals more. ... Labor and delivery is always the area of a hospital where they don’t make money."

Piling onto the problem are looming cuts to Medicaid, which could deepen the financial crisis for hospitals — especially those in rural areas where a larger percentage of the population relies on Medicaid coverage.

In some Michigan counties, Medicaid covers more than half of all childbirths.

Medicaid is "the single largest payer for women giving birth in our state," Appell said. “If you’re cutting the legs out from over 50% of your reimbursement, that’s a big hit.”

Aspirus Health continues to cut services in Michigan's UP

The pending closure of the labor and delivery unit at Aspirus Ironwood Hospital is just one of the many reductions in service that the nonprofit Aspirus Health, which is based in Wausau, Wisconsin, has made in recent years to hospitals it operates in the Upper Peninsula. The health system closed the Ontonagon hospital in April 2024, giving the community just two months' notice — though it had previously promised to build a new, $15.8 million hospital with inpatient beds and an emergency department in Ontonagon.

Aprirus also cut labor and delivery services at Aspirus Keweenaw Hospital at the end of 2024 and eliminated some nurse staffing at the hospital.

Asprius also plans to eliminate most certified nurse aide positions at the Aspirus Iron River Hospital, the Michigan Nurses Association reported. The aides take patient vital signs, test blood sugar, remove IVs and catheters and help patients use the restroom.

"If Medicaid cuts are pushed down and state legislators have to make choices, there are no good choices. So quickly you’re going to come to elderly, disabled, pregnant women and children," Zaagman said.