Joe Lawrence: “Mike Collins has proven that he doesn’t… seem to care about the rural hospitals.”
New reporting from WDUN highlights a group of health care advocates and nurses who held a press conference to address GOP U.S. Senate nominee Mike Collins’ vote to pass massive Medicaid cuts that “solidified” St. Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital’s decision to shutter its labor and delivery unit last fall—which sits in Collins’ district.
Last summer, Mike Collins voted to pass Donald Trump’s unpopular budget law that included over $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, another potential $500 billion in cuts to Medicare, and threatens the affordable health care coverage of hundreds of thousands of Georgians already facing skyrocketing health care premiums. Reporting from the AJC found that the budget law could gut $540 million from Georgia hospitals like St. Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital in Lavonia.
Previously, Collins has praised the cuts Donald Trump’s budget law made to Medicaid, and told Georgians that he wants them to “get off Medicaid.”
WDUN: Health Care Workers, Advocates Speak Out Against Medicaid Cuts in Lavonia
By: Will Daughtry | July 29, 2026
KEY EXCERPTS:
- In September of 2025, St. Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital in Lavonia shuttered its labor and delivery services.
- They cited Congressional cuts to Medicaid as a reason for the decision. President Donald Trump’s spending package […] was signed into law on July 4 of 2025.
- It enforced work requirements that begin in 2027, and plans to cut more than $1-trillion over a decade from federal health care and food assistance.
- Kara Holden, a former nurse in labor and delivery at St. Mary’s Franklin County location, is now an expecting mother. She will have to drive roughly an hour to get care in Greenville, South Carolina.
- “I am a registered Republican, actually … it breaks my heart because I think of all the 26-week preemies that came off the interstate that had nowhere else to go and I know we saved those babies’ lives,” Holden said. “I think of the moms who can’t afford to take three hours off of work on a weekly basis to get prenatal care, who can’t afford the almost $4 a gallon in gas to drive over an hour away to get prenatal care.”
- Holden said roughly 90% of their laboring mother population was on Medicaid, and the hospital decided they would lose too much money once Trump’s spending law was passed.
- They consolidated their care to their Athens location, roughly 45-minutes away.
- The hospital is in Representative for Georgia’s 10th Congressional District Mike Collins’ (R) district.
- “Mike Collins voted for Donald Trump’s Medicaid cuts, which has been a devastating blow to his own constituents in his own community,” Holden said. “We reached out multiple times to see if there was anything that could be done, and his priority was clear: partisan politics.”
- Holden added Collins is “unfit” for the senate role.
- “We need somebody that’s going to say, ‘I care about the least of these,’ not what Donald Trump wants me to care about,” Holden added. “Mike Collins has proven that he has no interest in doing that, which makes him unfit for this job.”
- Joe Lawrence, a current nurse at St. Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital in Lavonia, echoed Holden’s sentiment.
- “I’ve worked in Northeast Georgia hospitals really my whole career,” Lawrence said. “Mike Collins has proven that he doesn’t … seem to care about the rural hospitals.”
- He added that it is not just health care that leaves when a hospital shutters services.
- “The area loses a major employer,” Lawrence said. “I know in these counties, in Franklin County, in Hart County, and Stephens County, Elbert County, these local counties, that’s a major deal.”
- Lawrence also cited an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporting that Georgia’s rural hospitals could lose as much as $540-million due to the bill.
- “It can really happen anywhere in the state … last summer Evans Memorial in Claxton announced that they would potentially be forced to shutter their [Intensive Care Unit],” Lawrence said. “Our rural health systems are barely hanging on in some of these some of these small communities, and the Medicaid cuts that Mike Collins supported could send it into a total collapse.”
- Lawrence was also asked if other departments have been affected due to rural hospital workers stretching themselves thinner.
- “A lot of the nurses, like Kara, had to move on … our beloved physician, Dr. White, had to move on. You know, these are people that live locally, so everything’s just shift a little,” Lawrence said. “A lot of the nurses had to go to other areas like Anderson or Athens.”
- Liz Ernst, a state director with Protect Our Care, said mothers should not have to worry about giving birth on the side of the road.
- “These just aren’t numbers on a spreadsheet. They have real consequences for real people in real communities,” Ernst said. “When every minute matters during a medical emergency, that extra distance can make the difference between a healthy delivery and a tragedy.”
- She added the issue is popping up across Georgia.
- “Across Georgia, hospitals are making are forced to make really tough decisions: cutting services, laying off staff, delaying investments, or closing altogether,” Ernst said. “About 15 hospitals have either closed or considering closing … Mike Collins cast the vote that helped make these cuts a reality, despite representing communities like Lavonia that depend on rural hospitals to survive.”
- Georgia Democrats’ 10th Congressional District Chair Conolus Scott was also in attendance, and told Access North Georgia after that Collins’ representation has been one of absence.
- “Mike Collins, since he has been representing us, has been absent. We’ve had town halls, we’ve had things that we invited him to, and he refused to come,” Scott said. “We need somebody that’s going to represent all of us … Jon Ossoff has been doing that, and he will do that in the future.”
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