UNC Health Wayne eliminating inpatient care for children in 2024

Beginning Jan. 1, 2024, you will not be able to bring your kids to UNC Health Wayne for inpatient pediatric care. Instead, they will be treated in the emergency department.

For some parents, the change sounds concerning on the surface. Chelsea Wong has a history of struggling to find pediatric care for her two children.

"I have thought about going outside of the county just to get her care,” Wong said.

Wong said her daughter just recovered from a sickness that sent her searching throughout the county.

"She was sick with what I thought was croup, and I wanted to get her a same-day appointment. None of the locations around the county had an appointment for her at all,” she said.

With UNC Health Wayne in its final days of operating its inpatient pediatrics unit, Wong feels like she has one less option. The hospital said it only admitted two or three children weekly, and there was no longer a need to designate an entire floor for inpatient pediatric care.

"The only thing that is changing is that our pediatric patients that were observed before will now be cared for in the ED where you get faster care, and you get transferred quicker if that need arises,” President Jessie Tucker said.

Tucker said the hospital relies heavily on its outpatient providers like Goldsboro Pediatrics to prevent kids from ending up in the hospital.

"We try to do as much as we can in the office. [We’re] working hard to prevent them from going to the hospital,” Joseph Ponzi of Goldsboro Pediatrics said.

Joseph Ponzi of Goldsboro Pediatrics said many eastern North Carolina hospitals have stopped providing inpatient care for sick children, and the outpatient providers are stretched thin.

Tucker said care won’t go by the wayside, and the hospital is prepared to transfer any children they cannot care for.

“We have a helicopter pad. We have ambulance services, and ultimately, that is the best place for a really sick child. Just like other community hospitals, that is the way we are going.”

UNC Health Wayne is currently in the process of expanding other departments, such as labor and delivery. Tucker said the hospital currently delivers four or five babies every day and they have hired more pediatricians for newborn care.