Children’s Hospital Abandoning City?
Despite vast wealth it closed pediatric clinic on 29th and Clark.
It sounds like a PR nightmare.
Just two weeks before Christmas in 2023, Children’s Wisconsin closed its Next Door Pediatric Clinic on 29th and Clarke, which served some 1,700 patients, mostly low-income Black and Brown families who depended on the clinic for care of their children.
The decision had been announced two months earlier and clinic supporters started a petition opposing the decision and got more than 600 signatures within weeks. The move was opposed by the advocacy group, Milwaukee Inner-City Congregations Allied for Hope (MICAH), which worked to get media coverage.
It did a hell of a job. Even before the clinic closed there were stories by WISN, Fox 6, the Journal Sentinel, TMJ 4, Spectrum News, Biz Times, and the Shepherd Express, all raising questions about the decision. The hailstorm of coverage continued after the clinic closed, with coverage by Neighborhood News Service and other media outlets.
“We are losing healthcare for babies and children in the month of December, this is the absolute worst holiday tradition in existence in Milwaukee,” Jamie Lucas, Executive Director, Wisconsin Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, told the media.
Advocates noted that the Metcalfe Park neighborhood served by the clinic is one of the nation’s poorest, unhealthiest and most dangerous neighborhoods, according to a 2020 study.
They ticked off statistics noting that 95 percent of the clinic’s patients used Medicaid insurance. Fifty percent were under the age of six and live in areas with some of the highest rates of maternal/infant mortality, prematurity and lead toxicity. The infant mortality rate in the surrounding 53206 zip code is 29.1%, higher than in Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador. Some 20% of kids had lead poisoning, the highest of any Children’s Wisconsin clinic.
“We’re in dire need of health care services for children and mothers,” said Diannia Merriett, health equity organizer for MICAH.
The decision contradicted Children’s motto, “Kids deserve the best,” critics charged.
Children’s hospital said these patients could go to one of its other clinics, but the nearest one, Midtown Pediatrics, is about three miles away, at 5433 W. Fond du Lac Ave.
“Many families walk to the clinic, so transportation will be a barrier,” Merriett noted. “If a child is having an asthma attack, their parents must decide if they will use grocery money for an Uber or wait in the cold for a bus to get to the nearest clinic.”
Indeed, Children’s itself promoted the Next Door clinic as very conveniently located: “You can get to our Next Door Clinic using these bus routes: 27 (27th street), 23 (Fond du Lac), 35 (35th street), 22 (Center street) and 21 (North avenue).”
Children’s denied it was making this decision to save money. “In no way was this a financial decision,” it declared. “Well over 50 percent of our patients every year receive some form of Medicaid coverage.”
But as a study by the respected health care analyst KFF found, private insurers pay way more than Medicaid, nearly double the rate for all hospital services. By closing the Next Door clinic, where 95% of patients are on Medicaid, Children’s could lower the 50% system-wide figure it cited.
Children’s also said it was committed to making sure all children at risk for lead exposure are tested, “but if families can’t get to a clinic, then how can the hospital follow through on this commitment?” Merriett asked. “If children with lead are not tested, then they will have major health issues.”
Children’s conceded that transportation was an issue for patients at Next Door and said it “will assist families in transferring their care to our other locations.” It’s now been more than a year since the clinic was closed and Urban Milwaukee contacted Children’s media relations office to ask about that effort.
A woman named Sue who declined to give her last name said no one was available to discuss this and said they could only respond to email. Urban Milwaukee sent an email that included these questions:
“Your statement in December 2023 said that ‘We hear and understand the needs related to transportation.’ So what are you doing to see that they get transportation? And what percent of the patients served by the clinic are no longer being served by Children’s?”
The response sent by Children’s was signed by no one, did not answer either question and repeated the main reason it has given the media for closing the clinic, that “the space and size constraints at Next Door do not allow us to consistently deliver the services our patients require.”
Merriett contested this explanation: “They say they’re closing it because it’s a small facility with no room to grow,” she said. “I toured the clinic, and they have rooms not being used. They also have space in the building next to it, where the clinic originally started.”
Indeed, Children’s operated the pediatric clinic for many years using only space provided by the Next Door Foundation and in 2010 spent $1.9 million to build a 7,700-square foot building specifically to house the pediatric clinic and a dental clinic which opened in 2011. It still runs the dental clinic.
In building this facility, Children’s returned to its roots: For 55 years it was located at 17th and Wisconsin before moving out to Wauwatosa and the county grounds. In opening the Next Door clinic it was also addressing criticism that it had abandoned the city.
What’s changed since then? Two things: the media has far less clout today, which makes it easier for Children’s to weather any questions or criticism. And Children’s is focused on opening more suburban clinics to maximize revenue. It now has only three clinics offering primary care in Milwaukee neighborhoods and more than a dozen located in more affluent suburbs like Brookfield, Fox Point, Franklin, Greenfield, Mequon, New Berlin and Oak Creek, where patients are far less likely to be on Medicaid.
Back in 2010, when it built the Next Door clinic, Children’s hospital and its foundation combined had $1.138 billion in net assets, including a $310 million endowment, its federal tax forms showed. Since then they have tripled those numbers: the hospital and its foundation now have $3.2 billion in combined net assets, including $1.2 billion in publicly traded securities and an endowment of $1.089 billion, its tax forms show. This is an astonishingly wealthy non-profit, whose tax exempt status helps build that wealth while leaving behind service to the poorest patients in town, who will help subsidize Children’s through the taxes they pay.
Back in 2010 Children’s had just two employees earning more than $600,000 in annual compensation; today it has seven at that level, led by its CEO Margaret (Peggy) Troy, who gets nearly $2.3 million. As it continues to grow its huge pot of money there will be more administrators hitting this level of pay.
Children’s Wisconsin has a 27 member board of directors, led by co-chairman Patrick Hammes, managing principal with Hammes Partners, a company which invests in health care real estate. No one from the board has offered any statement on the closing of the Next Door clinic.
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Is more money for the richest in society, the only thing that matters anymore?
Thank you for shining a light on this! These “nonprofits” need to be accountable to the people- because their purpose is to serve the kids and families who are our neighbors, and because we all pay their share of property tax!
Remember there is a clinic at I43 and Moorland rd and there have to be other outlying clinics as well Ahhhhhhhhh How much more are we to take???? Where is the decency???