Nurses from Saint Alphonsus Medical Center in Baker City gathered beside Wednesday afternoon for a rally to oppose the closure of the hospital’s birth center on Aug. 27.

The nurses, members of the Saint Alphonsus chapter of the Oregon Nurses Association, also talked about the closure of the intensive care unit at the hospital in January of this year.

“We are out here to raise awareness to gather community support,” said Megan Nelson, a nurse at Saint Alphonsus for more than nine years and president of the nurses association chapter.

More than 45 nurses and others participated in the rally.

“It used to feel like a community. That’s why we are here,” Nelson said. “We want patients to get care, here in Baker.”

Passing drivers honked their horns, followed by cheers from nurses on the sidewalk. They donned matching green T-shirts and held up signs with the slogan “Recruit, Retain, Respect,” highlighting their chief requests from Saint Alphonsus, which is owned by Trinity Health of Michigan.

Nelson said the nurses union is in contract negotiations with Saint Alphonsus. She said the union is asking for competitive salaries “to recruit and retain new staff.” She said nurses at Saint Alphonsus are earning $5 to $10 less per hour than their counterparts at Grande Ronde Hospital in La Grande.

“They like to say it’s not about money,” said Alyson Rino, a registered nurse at Saint Alphonsus and lifetime Baker resident, referring to statements from hospital officials that the birth center closure, which provoked widespread complaints in the community, resulted from a shortage of nurses and declining birth rates, not the financial losses the hospital incurs from operating the birth center.

Rino said Saint Alphonsus has told nurses that the hospital has a “small bucket” of money to boost wages.

Rino said some nurses are nervous about their job security following the closures of the ICU and the birth center.

Jenna Hall, a nurse who worked in the birth center for about five years, contends that Saint Alphonsus has not treated nurses fairly.

“They’ve tried to throw nurses under the bus,” Hall said.

Hall, in an earlier interview, disputed claims from Saint Alphonsus administrators that the hospital asked birth center nurses to train to work in other departments, given the declining number of deliveries, but that nurses weren’t interested.

Hall contends that although administrators raised the prospect of cross-training there was not a formal proposal, and that although some nurses weren’t interested, she doesn’t believe it’s accurate to say the nurses as a group outright rejected the idea.

Nelson said nurses who have lost their jobs in the birth center can reapply for other jobs, but nothing is guaranteed. She said nurses were offered a one-month extension of health insurance, but no severance package.

Rino said nurses weren’t notified in advance of the pending closures of the ICU or the birth center. She said nurses were optimistic, based on conversations with administrators, even after the ICU closed, that the hospital was committed to keeping the birth center open.

“They lied to us,” Rino said.

Saint Alphonsus officials have said that a nursing shortage in June prompted the hospital’s announcement, on June 22, that the birth center would close.

With six doctors from St. Luke’s Medical Clinic-Eastern Oregon Medical Associates in Baker City having resigned from their position giving them privileges to see patients at Saint Alphonsus Medical Center in Baker City, the hospital has arranged to staff the hospital with board-certified internal medicine physicians to treat St. Luke’s patients who are admitted for inpatient care.

One of the St. Luke’s doctors, Neil Carroll, said he and the other doctors told Saint Alphonsus officials in late June, a few days after the hospital announced the pending closure of the birth center, that the doctors would resign from their positions on the hospital medical staff when the birth center closed.

The birth center closed Aug. 27.

Carroll and St. Luke’s doctors Lily Wittich, Trisha Eckman and Nathan Defrees all deliver babies as part of their practices. Doctors Eric Lamb and Dan Smithson no longer works in obstetrics but did in the past. Lamb is Baker County’s public health officer.

St. Luke’s recently sent a letter to its patients noting that the clinic’s doctors no longer have medical privileges at Saint Alphonsus. The letter is signed by clinic doctors and other medical staff, including physicians assistants and nurse practitioners.

“Going forward, all patient care inside the walls of the hospital will be provided by the hospital’s clinicians, who are not affiliated with St. Luke’s,” the letter states. “We understand there are concerns about the changes at the local hospital, but what isn’t changing is our dedication to our community and to providing the very best care.”

The letter states that the clinic’s physicians will continue to offer care “for most stages of the pregnancy journey and for infants.”

Births, however, will have to be at a hospital outside Baker City, the letter states.

“Know we will continue to see patients of all ages in our clinic, from newborns to the oldest patients in our community, and offer outpatient procedures like long-term birth control implants and intrauterine devices, joint injections, newborn circumcisions, vasectomies, skin biopsies and skin lesion removals,” the letter states. “And we will still meet urgent needs, like laceration repair and acute illness management, as well as provide ongoing management of chronic diseases.”

In response to questions from the Baker City Herald about the effect of the five St. Luke’s physicians no longer having privileges at the Baker City hospital, Saint Alphonsus officials wrote:

“Even though these physicians have voluntarily resigned their inpatient privileges, they are still able to order outpatient services in order to provide easy access for patients that need these services. Inpatient services are now managed for all patients by Apogee, a nationally recognized provider of inpatient hospital physician services, who is staffing the hospital 24/7 with Board Certified Internal Medicine Physicians. When EOMA patients are admitted for inpatient care, our Apogee Physicians will work closely for a safe and seamless transition from inpatient status back to the EOMA physicians.

“Our new Medical Director of inpatient services is Dr. Augustine Okeke. Dr. Okeke is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and has been the medical director in Ontario for seven years. He brings a vast amount of experience as a dedicated rural medicine physician.

“We continue to offer a full range of services, including inpatient care, short-term inpatient rehabilitation, emergency care, orthopedics, infusion therapy, oncology infusion therapy, imaging/radiology services, physical, occupational, and speech therapy, and wound care at SAMC – Baker City in order to keep those needing these services right here in our community.”