07/01/09 Prineville
 
No more babies will be born at Pioneer Memorial Hospital in Prineville by 2010. The hospital announced Wednesday it's forced to stop obstetric services by the end of the year due to a doctor shortage. "We have to have physicians that are capable of doing obstetrics to deliver the service and it doesn't look good at this point so that's why we made the decision," said CEO of Pioneer Memorial Hospital Don Wee.
 
This means expectant mothers will have to drive,18 miles to Redmond, or 34 miles to Bend to give birth. The Pregnancy Resource Center in Prineville provides support for mothers. It says this will create a problem. "They're not going to want to a have a doctor doing their prenatal care then having a different doctor during the birth," said Tony Bristow, Board Member of the Pregnancy Resource Centers in Central Oregon.
 
They'll soon have to start referring patients to doctors in Redmond or Bend for continuous care. "With the financial, the economic situation here in Crook County we have a lot of depressed people who don't have the money or the reliable vehicles to be making trips to Bend or Redmond to get their prenatal care," said Bristow.
 
Pioneer Memorial Hospital has tried for the past few years to recruit physicians who can provide obstetric services. Three of it's four physicians have decided to move out of the area or stop providing that service. With an average of 150 babies born there per year, one physician is not enough. "What we'll do is try to work with other communities and other clinics to see if we can establish some relationships and if we can maybe do some prenatal care here so the patients don't have to drive so far and then of course at the time of delivery they'll have to go to that physician at that hospital there," said Wee.
 
The deliveries will be phased out through the end of the year.