(St. Paul, MN) – November 7, 2025 – Nurses with the Minnesota Nurses Association are outraged and frustrated by Allina Health’s decision to permanently close the Faribault Birth Center on December 1, 2025. This abrupt move will deprive patients and families across Southern Minnesota of critical, local access to maternity care. Allina’s decision to close the birth center in Faribault so it can open a new one at Owatonna Hospital is yet again another example of corporate health systems putting profits and consolidation over patients.
The closure, announced with no community engagement or notice, will force expectant parents to travel further for essential services and place an unnecessary, and potentially dangerous, burden on families, while undermining equitable access to care in the facility.
By rushing this closure, Allina didn’t comply with the legally required notice mandating health systems to give the public at least 182 days-notice if they plan to shut down a unit. The law also requires a public hearing to be held within 30 days of the public notice. Allina’s plans fall far short in complying with both parts of this important transparency legislation at a time where nurses, the community, and patients need and deserve it most.
“Allina’s decision to close the Faribault Birth Center will impact families and add to economic stress because they must travel further for care” said Lynn Auseth, RN at Allina Faribault Medical Center. “MNA will work closely with affected nurses who will be left without a job.”
This change follows a troubling pattern of hospital decision-makers prioritizing profits over patients, and closely follows other similar announcements such as Mayo Clinic Health System announcement in October that they will remove OB-GYN providers from Owatonna Hospital, Mayo’s closure of its OB unit in New Prague in 2024 and Essentia Health-Fosston’s OB unit closure in 2024. This alarming trend has been going on for too many years. An October 2025 study from the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center, reveals 14 Minnesota counties lost hospital-based obstetrics care between 2010 and 2023. It remains abundantly clear rural communities still need birth services—in 2024, according to data from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), Owatonna’s hospital had 333 births and Faribault Medical Center had 198 births.
Allina’s latest decision will also result in impacts non-birthing patients at Faribault Medical Center, including:
- Faribault Medical Center will no longer provide emergency surgery coverage evenings and weekends beginning December 2025
- Faribault Medical Center will no longer admit pediatric patients beginning in May 2026
“A large part of the population we serve are low-income and people experiencing high risk pregnancies” said Ashley Dompierre, RN at Allina Faribault Medical Center. “Not having these services in Faribault will make these pregnancies even more challenging and make attracting young families to the community difficult.”
Every family deserves access to safe, high-quality birthing services close to home—not just those who live in larger, more profitable communities.
MNA stands strong with the Faribault community and calls on Allina Health to stop pitting rural communities against each other and instead retain essential birthing services and invest in accessible care in both Faribault and Owatonna.