Hospital in South Arkansas closes maternity ward, adding to region's shortage

Hospital in South Arkansas closes maternity ward, adding to region's shortage

(Getty Images)Another rural Arkansas labor and delivery unit closed its labor and delivery unit Friday, leaving pregnant South Arkansans having to drive nearly an hour for the closest hospital to give birth.  The maternity ward at the Ouachita County Medical Center in Camden closed after hospital administrators concluded that keeping it open “was no longer feasible,” hospital CEO Glenda Harper said Friday afternoon. Harper said last year that th…