Two rural community hospitals will be locking their doors between Oct. 9 and Oct. 12, citing wilting demand and unsustainable financial situations.
Herington (Kan.) Hospital shuttered abruptly Oct. 9, informing staff of the closure on the same day they were sent home. "Lengthy financial struggles and consistently low patient volumes" informed the decision to close, according to a statement from the hospital.
Three days after Herington Hospital locked its doors, St. Mark's Medical Center in La Grange, Texas, will do the same. The hospital will close Oct. 12 after unsuccessful attempts to satisfy its financial obligations — including $13 million of mortgage debt.
"St. Mark's would have faced closure years earlier had it not been for COVID-related funding and an agreement with the hospital's mortgage lender and HUD to pay less than the full mortgage since February 2020," said Dudley Piland, the hospital's board chair.
The back-to-back closures are not an anomaly. Forty-three rural hospitals have shuttered since 2020, and some health systems are trimming services in less populous areas.
Although federal and state programs aim to support struggling rural hospitals, they aren't always enough to save them. St. Mark's converted to the Rural Emergency Hospital designation in February, giving it access to payments of $187,500 per quarter for six quarters from the Texas government. Despite the additional support, and a $50,000 commitment from a local economic development group, the hospital could not stay afloat.
"Closure is certainly not the outcome that anyone wanted for our community, the staff or their families," Mr. Piland said. "But without the additional local funding support HCOE [a local investor group] was seeking, the hospital is out of options."