SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – Come February, no more babies will be delivered at Winner Regional Health.
The hospital recently announced they would be suspending its labor and delivery services on February 1 after struggling to hire permanent doctors.
“We can’t afford the additional cost of more traveling doctors, so we had to make the difficult decision to suspend these deliveries until we’re able to recruit physicians that can provide the service,” WRH CEO Brian Williams said.
In 2024, just over 100 babies were delivered at the hospital. Winner’s rural location in south-central South Dakota means patients come from all over the area for their labor and delivery.
“I just hope that we’re able to bring it back very quickly because it’s a huge blessing to our community,” Williams said. “It’s a huge blessing to the region. I mean we get people coming from Bonesteel, we get people coming from Rosebud.”
Williams said they’re working with expecting families to create an alternative birth plan at neighboring hospitals with labor and delivery services. The Sanford Chamberlain Medical Center is an hour away from Winner, hospitals in Pierre and Valentine, Nebraska are about an hour and a half away and Mitchell is two hours.
Winner isn’t the only hospital struggling to recruit and retain physicians, especially in rural areas. Williams noted that the problem is regional and national.
The Sanford School of Medicine at the University of South Dakota is working to combat the lack of physicians in rural South Dakota by recruiting potential medical students from rural areas, sending students in their program to rural hospitals to shadow and setting them up with rural residency programs after they get their medical degrees.
“They’re South Dakota residents, or they have a strong tie to South Dakota, meaning they’re more likely to come back and practice in the state,” SSOM Dean Tim Ridgway said. “Throughout our four-year curriculum, we expose them to rural practice opportunities that increase the chances of them coming back.”
Ridgway said the program receives over 1,000 applications every year, but most of the students they accept are from South Dakota and have expressed an interest in working in rural healthcare.
“I really believe that we at the school are making an impact, but we have a ways to go and Winner is a prime example,” Ridgway said. “My hope, my goal is that they won’t be without practitioners for a long period of time.”
Williams said the closing announcement they made on social media has actually helped spread the word and he’s already had a few physicians express interest in Winner.
“There’d be nothing more I would love than in a week to come out and say, ‘Due to events, we will no longer be suspending labor and delivery,’ but I can’t guarantee that because I don’t have any signed contracts.”
