Officials at Rocky Mount, N.C.-based Nash UNC Health Care said the hospital will close its pediatric care wing within the next 60 to 90 days, according to the Rocky Mount Telegram.
Larry Chewning, president and CEO of Nash UNC Health Care, said the reason for the closure is that the hospital doesn't see a high enough volume of pediatric inpatient admissions to warrant staffing an entire department. Since opening the pediatric emergency department in 2014, the average number of patients visiting the pediatric ED per day has jumped from 22 to 36, with an all-time high of 57 in February during the peak of cold and flu season, while the number of patients visiting the hospital's pediatric wing has decreased, according to the report.
The closure will cost the health system roughly $300,000 per year in revenue. The hospital will maintain its special care nursery for infants and will potentially convert the pediatric wing into an overflow wing for adult medical patients, according to the report.
Mr. Chewning said the roughly nine employees affected by the closure will be eligible for positions elsewhere in the health system. He also said more nurses and physicians have been hired to accommodate the growing number of patients visiting the ED.
"Every community hospital that I've known of, the frequency at which children are admitted to a hospital has gone down dramatically," said Mr. Chewning. "It got to a point where we would typically have one child per day that's in the hospital getting overnight care, and because of that[,] it doesn't make sense for us to staff a whole wing of our hospital to take care of one patient per night."