This month, there will be a public hearing on Allina Health’s plans to shutter inpatient pediatric services at Mercy Hospital — Unity Campus and move ICU and surgery services from Fridley to Coon Rapids in June. The decision could mean job loss for providers and disrupted patient care.

Allina cites declining pediatric patient volume and high renovation costs of operating rooms as part of the rationale. Their plan would convert the two pediatric beds to adult ones.

Dr. Taylor Dalsing — a board-certified pediatrician — works at Mercy in Fridley. She says the declining patient volume is more complicated, as it fluctuates seasonally with upticks in infections like RSV and flu.

“Sometimes throughout the year, post-COVID, we’ve actually seen a pretty variable pattern of these things. And so it’s difficult to predict,” she said.

Some pediatricians will remain in Fridley for outpatient services, as part of a shifting care model, according to a statement from Allina. Daytime coverage of the emergency department and newborn nursery will remain. There will be no changes to NICU and clinic-based newborn rounding.

“We are dedicated to providing the same excellent overnight pediatric coverage model that is present at our other metro hospitals to ensure seamless care delivery,” the statement reads.

Dalsing says while the consolidated care is a step in the right direction, it leaves “critical gaps in care,” as Mercy is an island for inpatient pediatric care in the north metro. Maple Grove ended its program in recent years, Mercy pediatrician Jaci Bender told MPR News last month.

“And so all those beds have been dissolved. This causes a huge problem because it consolidates all of the Twin Cities metro care for kids to our downtown hospitals, such as Children’s Minnesota,” Bender said.

Dalsing says that transfer itself is difficult.

“Although it sounds easy in just thinking about transfer[ing] a patient to the Children’s Hospital, in reality it is actually pretty hard,” she said. “It often takes us hours to rent an ambulance to transport the patient. And during the busy cold and flu seasons, like I said, oftentimes these children’s hospitals are full, even their pediatric ICUs … So this leaves these patients stuck in the Mercy ER for many hours to days at a time.”

The Minnesota Nurses Association expressed criticism of Allina’s plan, estimating 63 nurses would be laid off from Fridley. Allina says it’s committed to both connecting patients with alternative care options and connecting many of its employees to different job opportunities.

Reactions from Fridley health care workers have been mixed, according to Dalsing.

“We, I know, on the pediatric side have already had nurses leave because they won’t get that pediatric experience. I think in general, a lot of people are disappointed with the way Allina has handled this,” Dalsing said.

Thursday at 3:30 p.m., a group of health care workers facing layoffs will speak out against Allina’s decision.

“Right now, our pediatric group at least is holding out hope that Allina may reverse the decision,” Dalsing said.

Read the full statement from Allina here:

Allina Health is repositioning care delivery at Mercy Hospital (Coon Rapids) and Mercy Hospital — Unity Campus (Fridley) to ensure both campuses are best equipped to support our patients and communities with high quality care well into the future.

Several factors are driving the repositioning of services across both campuses. First and foremost, we are working to create additional access to care in the Northwest region by ensuring care is being delivered in the right place. The low volume of ICU patients and the extensive and costly renovations needed to the operating rooms at our Unity campus required us to think holistically about how we can sustainably deliver care in the Northwest Metro, inclusive of the two hospital campuses, clinics and ambulatory surgery centers.

By moving ICU and surgical care to the Mercy campus, we are creating the opportunity to increase access to certain services at our Unity campus that are a critically important part of the solution to the state’s persistent patient boarding issue.  

We have experienced a declining volume of inpatient pediatric patients in our two dedicated pediatric beds and have been working closely with physician and operational leaders at Mercy Hospital to refine the model for pediatric care. The new pediatric care model will continue to include daytime coverage by pediatric hospitalists in the newborn nursery and Emergency Department.

We are dedicated to providing the same excellent overnight pediatric coverage model that is present at our other metro hospitals to ensure seamless care delivery. NICU and clinic-based pediatric newborn rounding will continue with no changes to the model that exists today. We will continue to work with our provider partners in the community to ensure care pathways.

We are dedicated to working with staff impacted by these changes, and we hope the majority of them will remain Allina Health employees.