Published: Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Akron Children's takes over Tod management
The new Tod Children's will attract more pediatric medical specialists, the administrator says.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
YOUNGSTOWN — The discharge Monday of the last patient from Tod Children's Hospital marked the beginning of the end of an era in pediatric health care here.
Today, the formal transition of Tod Children's from Forum Health's Northside Medical Center to the management of Akron Children's Hospital occurred.
"It's very, very sad to see what we built up go away," said Diane Duer, assistant nurse manager, who has worked at Tod Children's for more than three decades.
Also, she will apparently not be able to continue her career as a pediatric nurse at Tod Children's. She said her application for the new Tod Hospital, which as of today is temporarily located at St. Elizabeth Health Center, was rejected by Akron Children's Hospital, which manages and operates the new Tod Children's.
Hospital officials said in January that Tod Children's will be permanently relocated into Humility of Mary Health Partners' new St. Elizabeth Health Care Hospital Boardman Campus when construction of the facility is complete later this year. The new Tod Children's is jointly owned by Forum Health, HMHP and Akron Children's.
The Tod Children's pediatric clinic and emergency department are still in operation at Forum Health's Northside Medical Center campus, said James A. Mumford, Tod administrator.
What employees say
But Duer said the employees have been told the clinic will be closed at the end of June and the emergency department by the end of the year.
After that, "I will be working as a nurse in the adult population for the first time in my career," said Duer, of Youngstown.
She said Akron Children's took some Tod nurses and did not take others. "Most of the older, seasoned nurses were not chosen to work in the new hospital," she said.
Tod Children's is not just a building. "It's about the care children received here," Duer said.
Jackie Kanaan, a receptionist-billing clerk at the Tod clinic, said management has told her she is in danger of losing her job. It may be possible to get a job elsewhere in the Forum Health system, but there are no guarantees, she said.
"I never expected at my age to have to change jobs," said Kanaan, of Liberty, who is on the "verge" of retirement.
Kanaan, who has worked at the pediatric clinic for 10 to 12 years and on the oncology floor at the former Southside Hospital before it closed, blamed the previous management for the demise of Forum and Tod Children's.
Changing plans
Plans for Tod Children's have changed dramatically over the last few years.
The Forum Board of Trustees is just a few years removed from planning to build a stand-alone facility for Tod Children's on the Northside campus on Gypsy Lane.
Last year, Forum moved the children's hospital into the Northside building, saying the move would save $4 million a year and solidify Northside's position.
Then, on Jan. 31, the three-hospital partnership was announced, which Mumford said is the best scenario that could have occurred.
"We were faced with looking at closing Tod Children's entirely. For the year I've been here, I've been looking for a strategic partnership ... to keep a pediatric care hospital in the Mahoning Valley," Mumford said.
He said most children's hospitals are located in high-population areas, such as University Hospitals' Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital in Cleveland, the Cleveland Clinic, Akron Children's, and UPMC's Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh — all within an hour or two driving distance of Youngstown.
St. Elizabeth's had 16 pediatric beds and Tod Children's 28 beds, he said.
Closing of Tod on the Northside campus is "certainly a loss in a way." But, Mumford said, it will open the door to attract more pediatric medical specialists to provide specialized care that would not be possible for competing institutions to supply individually, given the dwindling pediatric population.
"We're blessed to have one of the nine children's hospitals in Ohio in the Mahoning Valley," he said.
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