HCMC workers are urging lawmakers for financial assistance to keep hospital open

Workers with the Hennepin County Medical Center(HCMC) and its partners with the Minnesota Nurses Association(MNA) are calling for support from lawmakers.

The press conference featured several HCMC workers calling for legislative action to help prevent the hospital from closing.

Those who gathered at the press conference warned that, should HCMC close down, wait times for patients would skyrocket and hospitals could be overwhelmed by the influx of patients who no longer had access to HCMC.

“If HCMC closes our patients, our patients don’t just disappear,”  Shane Hallow, president of the Hennepin County Association of Paramedics and EMTs, said. “What happens instead is the entire system will strain under the weight. Emergency departments across the Twin Cities will take on more than they are built for…from our perspective in EMS, this is not a theoretical concern. We know this will happen.”

HCMC is a significant trauma center for Minneapolis, estimated to receive more than 100,000 visits annually.

However, the hospital has been facing financial difficulties in recent years, raising concerns that it will need to close down as its deficit piles up.

READ MORE: Lawmakers told HCMC is on financial life support

HCMC’s financial situation is reportedly the result of the volume of “uncompensated care” it provides to uninsured patients. The cost of that care for HCMC totaled $90 million in 2024, the most recent figure available, which was 40% higher than in 2023. It represented 20% of all uncompensated care in Minnesota in 2024.

Jeremy Olson-Ehlert, a registered nurse at HCMC and second vice president of MNA, says it’s more than just a trauma center, saying it’s where Minnesotans go “when everything else has failed.”

“When a patient is uninsured, when they’re in crisis, when no other system will catch them, Hennepin County Medical Center does,” Olson-Ehlert said. “That’s exactly why we are here today. Because what is being called a financial crisis is really a moral failure of our healthcare system.”

Olson-Ehlert said HCMC is calling on all lawmakers to take bipartisan legislative action to assist them when they return from the legislative break, stating no significant action has been taken by lawmakers so far this session.

One possible solution is to shift a portion of the Hennepin County sales tax now used to pay off bonds for the Minnesota Twins stadium to help shore up HCMC’s finances. Those bonds are likely to be paid off in 2027, freeing up at least some of those funds.

However, no decision has been made regarding a shift in the sales tax at this time.