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By Hannah Yang

Mayo Clinic Health System in Fairmont will close its surgical unit and labor and delivery unit at the end of March 2025.

Surgeries, procedures and in-patient obstetric care, including the labor and delivery unit, will permanently end on March 31, though deliveries have been on an extended diversion since August 2024. Expecting patients will continue to be diverted to Mankato or another location of their choice until the official service closure, according to Mayo’s announcement Monday.

Two labor and delivery and eight postpartum beds will be deactivated as a result. The reason for the change is because of the shortage of physicians in the area. Mayo Clinic stated that it searched for several years “to find the practitioners needed to provide these services in Fairmont,” with no success.

Mayo also cited that Fairmont was seeing a declining birth rate and aging patient demographic, contributing to the “lowered need for OB-GYN services.” With the labor and delivery unit closure, consistent low patient numbers and need to shift more primary care resources to the clinic to improve patient access, in-patient pediatric admissions will also sunset on March 31. Patients can receive in-patient pediatric care at Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato or another facility of their choice.