When Banner Health announced in September that it would pause labor and delivery services at Platte County Hospital in Wheatland, it marked the fifth Wyoming hospital in recent history to shutter a birth facility.

Like facilities before it in Evanston, Rawlins, Kemmerer and Riverton, the hospital called it a difficult decision. Provider challenges like physician recruitment, declining births and profitability in Wyoming are steep. The result is a loss of services and large gaps in service here.

As lawmakers on the Legislature’s Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Committee spent most of Thursday wading through measures aimed at fortifying maternity care in the state, they acknowledged that the trend will be difficult to reverse. There were many references to the draft bills as “Band-

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