Before the sun rises on a Tuesday morning in December, Amelia Cline smooches her partner goodbye and heads out the back door of her house in West Asheville. With a thermos of coffee in one hand and a handful of medical supplies in the other, she climbs into the driver’s side of a white Toyota and settles in for her hour-ish drive to Macon County. 

Expectant mother Caitlin Austin of Balsam never imagined giving birth to her second child in a car. 

Mission Health leaders finally agreed to hold a meeting in Franklin to discuss their controversial decision to close the labor and delivery unit at Angel Medical Center, but the public and the media were not allowed to attend.

From a geographical prospective, Harris Regional Hospital in Sylva is strategically located to serve as a health care hub for the most western counties in the region, but hospital leaders know it will take more than a convenient location for patients to consider it their go-to resource for services.

It’s been more than two weeks since Mission Health announced Angel Medical Center would stop delivering babies as of July 14, but the Franklin community still has many unanswered questions and concerns. 

When Macon County residents joined together in 1971 to raise money to buy Angel Hospital and make it a community hospital, the effort was dubbed Operation Heartbeat.

Macon County residents have made a clear statement that they oppose Mission Health’s decision to discontinue labor and delivery services at Angel Medical Center in Franklin. 

A shake-up in the medical world of maternity care and childbirth means more choices for pregnant women in Jackson, Swain and Macon counties, but also heightened competition for the profitable labor and delivery line.

Two new obstetrics practices were launched within weeks of each other this fall, both catering to women in Jackson, Macon, Swain and beyond. The number of existing practices in the region doubled nearly overnight.