Most local residents found out the hospital closed by a sign on the main entrance to the facility, which provided no explanation as to why the facility shut down. A statement from Kansas City Mo.-based Rural Hospital Group, which acquired the hospital in 2018, cited financial difficulties and lack of support from local physicians as reasons for the closure.
“Lack of support from the local medical community was the primary reason we are having to the close the hospital,” reads a statement from RHG, according to the Wichita Business Journal. “We regret having to make this decision; however, despite operating the hospital in the most fiscally responsible manner possible, we simply could not overcome the divide that has existed from the time we purchased the hospital until today.”
Sumner Community Hospital is the first hospital RHG has closed, the company’s chief legal officer Dennis Davis told The Topeka Capital-Journal.
“The city of Wellington, authority board, people in Wellington supported us as much as they can,” Mr. Davis told the Capital-Journal. “But the only people who admit patients to hospitals are doctors, and when you don’t have the doctors’ support, a small, rural hospital cannot make it.”
Sumner Community Hospital has about 75 employees. They were told at the end of the workday March 12 that they no longer had jobs, according to the Wichita Business Journal.
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