The Pandemic Is Hurting Pediatric Hospitals, Too

Children have largely escaped the ravages of COVID-19, but children’s hospitals have not eluded the financial pain the pandemic has wrought on health care providers.

Pediatric hospitals offered themselves as backups to their adult counterparts in case of a surge of coronavirus patients. They suspended nonemergency surgeries and stockpiled protective gear and virus test kits, according to hospital executives and financial analysts.

But, in many regions, the surge was smaller than anticipated – or hasn’t materialized. And children’s hospitals that have offered to take sick kids off the hands of adult hospitals, or extend the age of people they admit,