SMETHPORT — Desperate, unfair, dangerous — the words McKean County Commissioner Marty Wilder used to describe the now eight-county maternity desert in northcentral Pennsylvania.

As reported in the Jan. 7 edition of The Bradford Era, Warren General Hospital will end its inpatient labor and delivery services. The closure comes despite more than a year of what hospital officials called “aggressive, multi-channel recruitment efforts to expand the team.”

Wilder said, “That makes eight counties across the northern tier of Pennsylvania without the ability to give birth in a hospital.

“We know our representatives in this area have been active, but in all honesty nobody in the state seems to be taking seriously how desperate it is, how unfair and dangerous it is.

“The state approved Medicaid funding for rural hospitals, but we still don’t know what’s going to happen with the broader transformational plan. There’s not a lot of attention on rural healthcare from the state at this point. It’s pretty damn frustrating.”

Commissioner Carol Duffy said, “Thank you for those comments, Commissioner Wilder. I totally agree.”

Commissioner Chairman Tom Kreiner Kreiner said he attended the Pennsylvania Mountains Rural Health Conference in Indiana, where the issue was also discussed.

“Dr. Miko Rose, the new dean of IUP’s College of Osteopathic Medicine, will be a plus. But they won’t even begin accepting their first class until this fall, and we’re looking at five or six years before they complete the course, so it would be 2032 before we reap any benefits from that.  “They’re working on a plan to keep people in rural Pennsylvania,” Kreiner said. “Hopefully they stay true to those guides and we see a change in the number of providers that we have.”

Kreiner also noted that Friday, Jan. 9., was National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, stating, “We recognize all those in law enforcement and applaud your dedication.”

Otherwise, commissioners moved quickly through routine business, approving an amendment with MJ Mechanical Services to add four split units to the quarterly maintenance schedule for an additional $620, authorizing the repository sale of 118 Janeway St. in Kane to the borough for $250, and signing a new Marco maintenance agreement for the sheriff’s office. They also accepted an $8,139.60 PowerDMS quote for the county jail.

Two Department of Human Services agreements — the county’s Intellectual Disabilities Administrative Entity operating agreement with the state Office of Developmental Programs, and the Human Services Development Fund (HSDF) contract with ATA — were renewed.

Commissioners will meet next at 10 a.m. Jan. 27 in the commissioners’ meeting room at the McKean County Courthouse.