Emmett community feels impact of West Valley labor and delivery, NICU closure [Video]

BOISE, Idaho — In July, Valerie Seamons and her husband will welcome their sixth child — expanding their family to two boys and four girls. 

“Our family will be complete,” Seamons said. “So, we’re excited.”

But her birth plan has not gone as expected. Seamons is now on her third doctor for this pregnancy after the first left the state and the clinic her second doctor worked at, Saltzer Health, shut down operations.

So, she found a doctor at Gem Family Medicine in Emmett, where her family lives. While that doctor and Dr. Jonathan Barrus do prenatal and postnatal care at the clinic, they deliver elsewhere because Emmett’s only hospital closed its labor and delivery services last year. 

For the last year, that place has been West Valley Medical Center. Not anymore. …