Leonard Morse Hospital in Natick is planning to shift to a behavioral health care campus, no longer offering acute care services such as surgical and emergency departments.
The change was proposed Tuesday by MetroWest Medical Center, of which Leonard Morse Hospital is a part. MetroWest filed a notice with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, which starts a regulatory review process.
The shift would take place in about 120 days, the hospital said.
“We envision the Leonard Morse Hospital campus becoming a unique behavioral health specialty center dedicated to the mental health of our community for child, adolescent, adult and geriatric psychiatric care,” Andrew Harding, the CEO of MetroWest Medical Center, said in a statement. “Behavioral health is a challenge in our community, and it is critical we optimize our services to help address the issue.”
MetroWest Medical Center will instead shift acute care services to its Framingham Union Hospital campus about six miles away. It will make investments to improve acute care services there, the hospital said, including to the emergency department, hospital infrastructure and clinical equipment.
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The proposed change would eliminate Leonard Morse’s medical and surgical unit, intensive care unit, operating rooms, emergency department and outpatient rehabilitation services, according to a filing with the Department of Public Health. Only psychiatric services, sleep services and CT scan services will remain.
The Natick campus is licensed for 160 beds: 64 medical and surgical beds, 10 intensive care unit beds, and 86 psychiatric service beds.
MetroWest Medical Center, along with Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester, is owned by Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare. In the most recent five-year period on record with the Massachusetts Center for Health Information and Analysis, MetroWest Medical Center reported a 9.5% drop in patient discharges, compared with a median increase of 1.1% among cohort hospitals.
