By Logan Wells, News Director | Logan@kymnradio.net
The Southern Minnesota community recently learned about the closing of one of its birth centers and the reorganization of another. Allina Health announced at the beginning of November that it would shut down the birth center at Faribault Hospital and transfer the care to its Owatonna location. The unit is set to close at the beginning of May 2026. Furthermore, at the Owatonna Hospital, the Mayo Clinic announced it was ending its role in the hospital’s birth center, with Allina as the sole operator of the facility.
Here in Northfield, CEO of Northfield Hospital and Clinics Zander Abbott says that this consolidation of birth centers is part of a larger trend among hospitals for over 10 years, he told an audience in October at the League of Women Voters forum on Medicaid funding changes:
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“Labor and delivery services are one of the highest volumes of Medicaid for any hospital. And so it’s oftentimes a service that doesn’t do well financially. And as you have shrinking volumes, the shrinking volumes make it hard to recruit staff, make it hard to afford the program, and make it hard to keep the service open 24/7. So that’s part of the challenge you see in many rural communities.” – Zander Abbott, Northfield Hospital and Clinics CEO; The Effect of Medicaid Changes on Our Community Forum Recording on 10.28.2025
Abbott stated that they were prepared to become a more regional center for births in Southern Minnesota. We will discuss the full effects of Medicaid funding changes on Northfield Hospital in a future newscast.
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