January 23, 2023 – St. Mary’s Hospital is seeking approval from the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board to discontinue the service lines of advanced inpatient rehabilitation, obstetrics, newborn nursery, pediatrics, and inpatient behavioral health services.
“First and foremost, please be assured that HSHS is committed to keeping HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital open and on the current Decatur campus,” said St. Mary’s President and CEO Theresa Rutherford. “We intend to be in Decatur for decades to come.”
The hospital says the move is in response to lingering effects of the pandemic, lagging patient volumes, rising labor costs, and an uncertain economy.
“Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS) leaders reviewed multiple scenarios to modernize our care delivery processes, which included an evaluation of the services that patients need and that we can afford to provide, as we to strive to be a viable provider in the area” a statement from the hospital read.
St. Mary’s says that employees in the impacted areas have been notified, and HSHS said it is exploring opportunities to transition them to other roles.
“We sincerely hope to retain these compassionate and caring professionals within our system. If these service discontinuation requests are approved by the state, patients who may be impacted will be directly notified in coming months,” said Rutherford.
The application for the initial changes will be submitted on January 31, but may not be decided on by the board until March 2023 or later.
“As a second phase to St. Mary’s modernization plan, HSHS plans to invest approximately $90 million for a major infrastructure renovation of the current facility to update clinical spaces, improve patient room amenities and update safety compliance issues throughout the care environment of the campus,” said Rutherford. “We look forward to sharing more information about this project in the future.”
