Rural North Carolina county is set to reopen its shuttered hospital with help from a new federal program

Williamston, North Carolina — On a mid-August morning, Christopher Harrison stood in front of the shuttered Martin General Hospital recalling the day a year earlier when he snapped pictures as workers covered the facility's sign. 

"Yes, sir. It was a sad day," Harrison said of the financial collapse of the small rural hospital, where all four of his children were born.

Quorum Health operated the 49-bed facility in this rural eastern North Carolina town of about 5,000 residents until it closed. The hospital had been losing money for some time. The county's population has slightly declined and is aging; it has experienced incremental economic downturns. Like many rural hospitals, those headwinds drove managers to discontinue labor and delivery services and halt intensive care during the past five years.