Ascension Health announced that it is shutting down inpatient operations and surgical services at Milwaukee’s St. Joseph Hospital, sparking criticism from community health advocates.

The neighborhood that St. Joseph serves is overwhelmingly lower-income, and its residents already live in a “primary care desert,” said the hospital’s chief administrator, Kevin Kluesner. 95% of the hospital’s 75,000 annual emergency department encounters are for problems that do not require admission, he noted.

Ascension’s management said that it wants to keep the facility open for some outpatient and neo-natal services, and lease out space within it to community health partners who can render value-based primary care and assist residents with overcoming social determinants of health (SDOH).

But officials at neighboring hospitals and community health entities argue that Ascension is choosing profits over the needs of St. Joseph’s critically vulnerable Medicare and Medicaid-dependent patient population.

Get both sides of the story here, from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Guy Boulton.