Prime Healthcare plans to permanently close the inpatient pediatrics unit at St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet – adding the hospital to a growing list of Chicago area facilities eliminating such care.
St. Joseph, which was bought by Prime last year, said in April 2025 that it was temporarily suspending pediatric inpatient care. At the time, the move drew criticism from nurses union the Illinois Nurses Association, which represents nurses at the hospital.
Now, the hospital has filed an application with the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board to shutter the 13-bed unit for good upon board approval or by the end of the year. The board will vote on the request at a future meeting.
Prime seeks to close the unit because it typically had one or fewer patients each day “which raised concerns regarding the quality of care that could be provided,” according to the application.
The hospital will continue to treat children in its emergency department, and if they need inpatient or specialized care they can be transferred to Endeavor Health Edward Hospital in Naperville, which is about 20 miles away. Inpatient pediatric services are also offered at Silver Cross Hospital in New Lenox, about nine miles away, a spokesperson for St. Joseph said in a statement Wednesday.
St. Joseph seeks to close the unit permanently as “low patient volumes cannot support the highest standards of care,” the spokesperson said in the statement.
“Together with other pediatric hospitals throughout the Chicago region, families continue to have access to high-quality inpatient pediatric care when hospitalization is needed,” according to the statement.
The statement noted that Prime is committed to the Joliet community and is investing in expanded behavioral health services, advanced neurosurgical and spine service capabilities and developing a new ambulatory surgery center, among other things.
Prime also noted in its application that from January through May 2025, the hospital transferred 61 pediatric patients to other hospitals, showing that “pediatric patients requiring services beyond Saint Joseph’s inpatient pediatric capability were already being directed to other facilities for appropriate care.”
The nurses union, however, maintains that the closure is not good for the community. The Illinois Nurses Association strongly condemns Prime’s attempts to permanently close the unit, said Kaitlynd French, who was previously a nurse at the hospital and now works as the union’s staff representative for the nurses there.
“Nurses and the community and (the Illinois Nurses Association) are just really concerned about this,” French said. “We really do feel like this decision is going to leave the Joliet community without any inpatient pediatric care.”
St. Joseph said in its statement that affected staff members were offered positions at “other Prime Healthcare hospitals in the Chicago area.”
In recent years, a number of community hospitals across the country have closed their inpatient pediatric units, often citing low numbers of patients.
In the metropolitan Chicago area, 27 hospitals have closed their inpatient pediatric units since 2013, according to an application for a new children’s hospital in Downers Grove filed with the state by Lurie Children’s Hospital.
Inpatient pediatric units are not typically big money makers for hospitals. Also, community hospitals face competition for patients from large pediatric hospitals such as Lurie, UChicago Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital and Advocate Children’s Hospital.
