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Protesters gather outside Southwest Memorial Hospital in Cortez, Colo. on June 8, 2023, the day after the hospital announced it would close its birthing center. The hospital reversed its decision on June 19. Photo by Corey Robinson / Special to The Colorado Trust

When a woman arrived to give birth at Southwest Memorial Hospital in Cortez, Colo., on a Monday evening in early June, she went into labor and Erin Schmitt, DO, the attending OB-GYN, helped deliver her baby within 15 minutes—about as straightforward a birth as Schmitt was likely to see. But an hour later, a nurse called Schmitt to say the woman was bleeding. Soon after, Schmitt was dealing with one of the most massive hemorrhages she had ever seen in her 10 years as a physician.

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