NNU’s report reveals Catholic hospitals lead nation in pediatric unit closures

By Lucy Diavolo

National Nurse magazine - July | Aug | Sept 2026 Issue

A new report, released on June 2 by National Nurses United (NNU), found that three major Catholic hospital systems have spent the last decade leading the health care industry in closures of pediatric care units. Pediatric care is often reimbursed through Medicaid, whose payments Catholic hospital systems apparently do not consider high enough to generate the profit margin they want to keep a unit open.

The shocking new report found that, overall, 25 percent of pediatric units had been shut down nationally from 2014 to 2025. Among the country’s 10 biggest hospital chains, three Catholic systems — Ascension, CommonSpirit, and Trinity — shuttered pediatric units at the highest rates of any major system. The new report, “Downsizing Mercy: Catholic Hospital Systems and the Crisis of Pediatric Unit Closures,” is available on NNU’s website.

“Our union’s new report is damning,” said Sandy Reding, operating room nurse at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital in California, president of California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, and vice president of NNU. “The data shows that these major Catholic systems are shutting down health care for kids in areas where children need it most, with high rates of poverty and few other options for care. They’re making decisions based on their own spreadsheets, not the needs of our patients and our communities. Catholic health leaders say they’re united for change, but if the changes they’re united behind are shutting down pediatric units, that’s not the common good.”

CNA/NNOC, NNU’s largest affiliate, represents around 25,000 nurses at Catholic hospitals in the United States.

“Pope Leo made clear in his recent encyclical: The best way forward is working together for the common good,” said Kristine Kittleson, RN at Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin in Texas. “Unfortunately, major Catholic hospital systems have abandoned the common good in favor of their own finances. And when nurses get organized to demand better, we’re met with union-busting that stands in defiance of the church’s own doctrines.