“This is all on top of an already pretty strained financial situation for rural hospitals,” Alexa McKinley Abel, director of government affairs and policy at the National Rural Health Association, a group representing rural health care providers, said in an interview. A report published this year by Chartis, a health care consulting firm, found that between 2011 and 2023, nearly 300 rural hospitals across the country stopped offering obstetrics care, and 424 rural hospitals ceased chemotherapy services. Due to financial strains, it’s in the process of selling off its home and hospice services to another health care facility. Rural hospitals in Mississippi also hope to tap into those funds. He said the new rural health care fund is promising, but noted that Mississippi will decide where to spend any money it gets, and some rural hospitals might miss out.