photo credit: Noah Abrams/KRCB

Pediatric patients at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital will need to find a new place for treatment next year.

Providence Health recently announced the final date for in-patient pediatric care at the hospital will be March 27th, 2026. 

Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital is the only level II trauma center serving Sonoma, Marin, Mendocino, and Napa counties.

Providence said it will still offer 24-hour emergency services for children in need of medical care, but will be devoting the pediatric clinic space to long-term adult care.

Administrators said adult care is in higher demand.

Speaking up at county meetings, trying to get Sonoma County supervisors to intervene in the planned closure, pediatric caregivers at Memorial have criticized the move.

As have members of Sonoma County's Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health advisory board, like Michael Perry.

"The plan is understood by our board is to close the facility and replace it with the system that includes transporting children requiring hospitalization to distant Bay Area hospitals, using helicopters and ambulances," Perry said to Sonoma County Supervisors in early December.

Providence, in a statement, said the hospital has frequently transferred pediatric patients with severe illness for long term care at the specialized UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital in San Francisco.

Perry, a retired Santa Rosa dentist, called the closure an opaque and internal decision. Perry said he believes Sonoma County supervisors should be doing more to push Providence to keep the pediatric clinic open.

"In my way of thinking, this is not a legal, but an ethical issue," Perry said.

The only other dedicated pediatric clinic in Sonoma County is at the member-only Kaiser medical offices in north Santa Rosa.

"If a disaster occurs with one child, we'll all wish we had done more," Perry said.

Providence said it has open positions for the 13 pediatric caregivers at other units within the hospital, and said the labor and delivery unit and neonatal intensive care unit at Santa Rosa Memorial will continue to operate after March 27th when the pediatric unit closes.