By Lee Guthrie
Tahlequah Daily Press
OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma has 90 rural hospitals, including 39 critical access hospitals, and over the past five years, two in Oklahoma have closed.
Erica Rankin-Riley, External Affairs manager in the Office of the Chief of Staff at the Oklahoma State Department of Health, said during that five-year period, several facilities have converted their licenses.
“During that same period, several facilities have gone through the formal process of converting their licenses to either a Critical Access Hospital or a Rural Emergency Hospital,” Rankin-Riley said. “This change updates a facility’s legal and operational designation under federal Medicare and Medicaid rules and results in adjustments to the services the facility is licensed to provide.”
She said according to OSDH records, in 2021, Bristow Medical Center converted to a non-inpatient facility, under the name Carrus Lakeside, and became an emergency room branch location under Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa.
Stillwater Medical in Perry converted to a rural emergency hospital in 2023, as did Stillwater Medical in Blackwell and Harper County Community Hospital. In 2024, Elkview General Hospital converted to an REH in 2024, and Stilwell Memorial converted in 2026.
As of 2025, Valley Community Hospital in Pauls Valley does not currently offer hospital services. In that same year, Stilwell Memorial Hospital closed. The Cherokee Nation formally opened up the new W.W. Hastings Hospital this month, and has projects around the reservation for wellness centers and health care facilities.
On Aug. 25, Tahlequah voters are going to the polls to cast ballots on extending the city’s sales tax, with 0.75% going toward capital improvement projects, and 0.25% of the 0.75% going into the general funds as a permanent tax to support the proposed projects.
One of the projects prioritized in a survey completed by about 500 residents in Tahlequah was updates to Northeast Health System facilities. Jim Berry, CEO of NHS, was part of the Capital Improvement Committee that worked on determining projects to be paid for with the funding from this tax.
Berry brought up the long-standing plans to, at some point, expand the hospital to a fourth floor and the need for more room for storage of medical supplies. Berry said there are currently 72 beds for patients. The hospital building is almost 50 years old, in the oldest portion of it, and a lot of infrastructure work is necessary, like a facelift to the building, Berry said.
“And we made a decision a few years ago to go to private rooms,” Berry said. “Historically, maybe what we need to keep in the back of our mind is the first two floors of the hospital were built in 1978; the third floor was added in 1984.”
He said at the December 2025 meeting of the committee, there is no actual campaign beyond the bond issue.
“There are potential sources out there; part of the Big Beautiful Bill passed in July [2025] had some funding for rural health, and I believe about a billion dollars per state,” Berry said. “We have made applications and the state has made applications, but there’s no guarantee.”
He said NHS has put in its own plans to the state. The first step would be federal grants – the state’s application; the second would be how the state decides to distribute those funds based on merits the state decides are appropriate.
A recent Oklahoma Rural Health Transformation Program has grant funds available for behavioral health integration – medications for opioid and alcohol use disorder; emergency medical service and ambulances; and expanding doula programs. A doula is a trained non-medical professional who provides physical, emotional and informational support to a mother before, during and after childbirth.
NHS applied for the grant for ambulances, which has 20 grants allocated to award up to $350,000 to each grantee. These ambulances are to serve the needs of rural Oklahoma and facilitate deployment of community paramedics, states the press release on the program from the OSDH.
“Many of Oklahoma’s rural communities are limited in their ability to acquire lasting assets that would demonstrably improve health care access, outcomes, and whole-person health,” states the press release on the ORHTP grants. “... many communities reported hours-long turnarounds when ambulances had to take longer trips, aging vehicles without the funds to replace them, and struggles activating community paramedicine programs without diverting existing EMS vehicles.”
Berry said, on July 24 , that rural health care in Tahlequah is well-served, and added the city is blessed to have expansive services uncommon for rural Oklahoma.
“[Those include] maternity care, emergency services, critical/intensive care, comprehensive imaging services, on-site laboratory services, surgery services 24/7, including general surgery,” Berry said. “Also, neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, ear nose and throat surgeons, cardiothoracic surgery, GYN surgeons, urologist, ophthalmologist and cosmetic.”
Subspecialty care includes cardiology, gastroenterology, pulmonology, rheumatology, neurology, allergy, nephrology, radiation oncology, and medical oncology/hematology, Berry said.
“Continued utilization of the services available in Tahlequah will be the key to sustaining them long-term,” Berry said. “Local patients who choose to go out of town for ‘better care’ could impact the future of local services.”
He said one example is NHS offers radiation oncology and medical oncology.
“These service lines ease patients burden to access and expense for travel to care; however, they must be utilized,” Berry said. “Each has a minimum number of treatments to cover overhead expenses, etc.”
For an 82- to 120-bed facility, it would cost approximately two-thirds of what the Cherokee Nation built, which puts the price at about $300 million to build a new NHS hospital, Berry said.
Learn more
To locate rural hospitals in the state of Oklahoma, go to okoha.com/OHA/OHA/Health_Care_Issues/Rural_Health/Rural_Health.aspx. Medical Facilities Service Directory of Facilities Licensed and/or Medicare Certified can be found at oklahoma.gov/content/dam/ok/en/health/health2/aem-documents/protective-health/medical-facilities-division/mfs-directoryoffacilities.pdf.
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