St. Luke's is discontinuing in-patient pediatric services at their Meridian hospital.
"This is truly the best decision for pediatric patients in the Treasure Valley and, really, the whole community," Dr. Kathryn Beattie, Executive Medical Director and Administrator for St. Luke's Children's, said.
Beattie tells Six on Your Side the Meridian campus only houses six beds for pediatric in-patient use.
"[This] allows us to expand and use those six beds for well-needed adult in-patient care at Meridian," she said.
Beattie said the Children's unit at Meridian generally only served one or two patients at a time.
Boise's St. Luke's Children's unit houses 39 pediatric beds, 13 pediatric intensive care beds and 61 beds for newborns requiring intensive care.
"We have pediatric surgeons, and, when they go to surgery, we have pediatric anesthesiologists and pediatric radiologists to read the films," Beattie said. "We have special therapists and technology that you just wouldn't have at a community hospital. We see it as a benefit for the community that all the kids will come here for care."
If your child is in an emergency, you can still take them to the E.R. at the St. Luke's Meridian Medical Center.
"There's no change in our emergency services or our newborn intensive care or newborn services," Beattie says.
The consolidation is expected to be complete by Aug. 12, 2016.
