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Southwest Health System facebook
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On June 8, 2023, Lindsay Yeager of Cortez, Colorado, woke up to a barrage of text messages, asking if she had heard about the local birth center closing. Yeager immediately sprang into action. By that evening, protesters gathered across the street from the city’s hospital with placards and a purpose: keeping the birthing center open.
The strategy worked, at least for the time being. About 10 days later, on the eve of another planned protest, Southwest Health System, which operates Southwest Memorial Hospital in Cortez, announced in a press release that the birthing center would remain open “following stakeholder input over the past two weeks.”
Yeager posted in a Facebook group that evening: “Congratulations Montezuma County! We will not be protesting tonight…Our fight is not over. We’ll be taking a breath to regroup but the battle for stable, community-focused care in Montezuma County continues!”