After a century of having a hospital in its limits, the City of Hammond will no longer have emergency care services as Franciscan Hammond will close its operations there by the end of the year.
Franciscan Health Hammond, Dyer and Munster interim President and CEO Barbara Anderson announced in a release Thursday that the Franciscan Health Alliance governing bodies have voted to stop inpatient admissions at its Hammond campus and will close its emergency department by the end of the year. Franciscan will instead focus on efforts to “broaden access to primary care,” she said, by moving its services to Munster and Dyer.
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Since Franciscan announced in 2021 that it would invest $31 million in creating a 10-bed inpatient and Emergency Unit in Hammond while demolishing much of the 100-year-old hospital itself, a perfect storm of too few patients and a health-care worker shortage caused the boards to rethink their strategy, Anderson said.
“In the last 15 months, we have seen inpatient volume at Franciscan Health Hammond drop to an average of 2.5 patients per day,” Anderson said in the release. “Of the 54 patients who present to the emergency room each day, more than 90% would be better served in a lower cost setting, such as an urgent care or primary care clinic. It is difficult to maintain operational efficiency at these volumes.”
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Additionally, a “critical shortage of health-care workers” and a “dramatic shift” in patients choosing full-service hospitals elsewhere “makes it impossible to continue to keep an inpatient facility open that is averaging less than three inpatients per day,” Anderson said. Franciscan Hammond will now divert patients needing inpatient care to its Munster and Dyer campuses as a result.
Had Franciscan been able to predict the “dramatic decrease in volumes,” administrators would’ve planned differently, Anderson said.
Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott Jr., a vocal opponent of Franciscan Health Alliance’s plans, was angry at the announcement.
“For nearly a year, the City of Hammond has been enduring the proposition of their only hospital being substantially closed when Franciscan Health announced that St. Margaret’s, which has been a mainstay of health services in the city for over 100 years, was eliminating most services and demolishing the majority of the health-care campus,” he said in a statement. “Now, after assuring the city and mayor last year that certain important services would remain open, Franciscan has announced that it is completely shutting down operations in Hammond by the end of the year — including the Emergency Room, which will leave critical services unavailable for many residents.
“This announcement has left Lake County’s largest city without a hospital for its 80,000 residents and it underscores the problem in America — an America that now has two healthcare systems — one if you are wealthy and one if you are not.”
And anyone who says people are “deciding with their feet” to go elsewhere is a red herring, he said.
“This healthcare corporation chose to divest in Hammond. This decision directly contradicts their ministry and mission to provide assistance to the poor and most vulnerable,” McDermott said, pointing out that the Franciscan Hammond Emergency room is a main drop-off point for the Hammond Fire Department. “This is not a compassionate decision. This corporate decision will place at risk anyone who needs immediate and emergency services that could result in a life-or-death situation.
“I promise that I will continue to do everything in my power to seek out an alternative healthcare providers that are committed to the city and its residents and to make sure Hammond’s healthcare needs are met.”
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Anderson said that Franciscan Health Alliance will invest $5.3 million to renovate space for its Dr. John Lanman Clinic for the uninsured and underinsured, Fresh Start Market for the food insecure, Diaper Pantry, Prenatal Assistance Program, primary care clinic, dialysis, anticoagulation clinic, multi-specialty clinic and women’s health center. They will also try to provide Hammond staff members with other jobs throughout the network, though it wasn’t immediately clear how many that would be.
A “qualified developer of housing for senior and disabled citizens is very interested in working with the city to renovate the two oldest and largest buildings on the campus” as well, plus a “federally qualified health-care clinic has expanded its territory into Hammond for the development of a primary clinic to serve the ongoing healthcare needs of those seeking care locally,” Anderson said in the release.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
