2014-09-26T17:37:00Z 2014-09-26T20:05:27Z Southwest Regional Medical Center closes doors on short notice Ledger Independent
GEORGETOWN, Ohio | A week after more pressure was placed on Southwest Regional Medical Center to pay creditors, hospital officials told employees on Friday afternoon that the facility would be closing its doors at 5 p.m.
“What you heard is true,” said a woman who answered a phone at the hospital. “At a meeting in the cafeteria today Rodger Rieger, our (chief operating officer) said we are closing; yes, for good.”
She added that patients were also being removed from the facility under the same deadline.
According to Ashley Ramos, an environmental specialist at the facility, and a mother of two small children, she had gone to the hospital to pick up her paycheck, because Friday was also payday, she was shocked to learn she no longer had a job.
“I have only been there about two and half months, so I do not even qualify for unemployment, and they did not have our paychecks for us today,” Ramos said. “They said maybe they would have our checks and us be able to cash them on Monday or Tuesday.”
Repeated attempts by The Ledger Independent to speak with Rieger or other hospital administration were met with answering machine requests to leave a message.
Last week, police and others who were affiliated with the debt collection removed, then returned, office furnishings and equipment at the hospital.
“The thing is, they met with us then too and said everything was fine and it had been worked out,” Ramos said.
A settlement was allegedly reached between Georgetown Emergency Group and an affiliate of Schumacher Group, and the hospital over collection of a $350,000 debt to the groups from a complaint filed in March 2013 which claimed that the hospital had not paid for the use of emergency room employees between October 2012 and March 2013.
In a press release following the collection attempt officials noted that Dr. Krishna Surapaneni has been trying to pay off the millions of dollars owed, to take the hospital out of the red.
According to the statement, “Over $7 million in old debt has been retired over the past 4 years including more than $1 million paid on old debt over the past year. While most of the old debt has been retired, we are still working with a few old vendors on the last few debts. We have been fighting these same battles for years. Each of the vendors wants to be paid-in full first; some vendors have been more willing to set-up a payment plan than others.”
According to officials, about one third of the debt had been retired.
Formerly Brown County Hospital, the facility was sold by the Brown County Commissioners in 2011, to Paul Tufts.
After repeated failed attempts by Brown County to sell the property, in 2011 Tuft purchased the hospital through an agreement where he agreed to assume vendor debts, leases, loans and anything owed by the hospital at that time, amounting to more than $9.7 million.
Prior to the sale, as a non-profit hospital under county ownership, Brown County Hospital bled about $6 million for unpaid treatment, officials said.
Tufts sold it to Joan Phillips in 2012 and she sold it in September 2013, to Dr. Krishna Surapaneni who took over as president and CEO.
By 4 p.m., Friday access to the facility website was blocked.
According to an article in U.S. News and World Report, “Southwest Regional Medical Center is a general medical and surgical hospital in Georgetown, Ohio, with 32 beds. Survey data for the latest year available shows that 11,838 patients visited the hospital's emergency room. The hospital had a total of 921 admissions. Its physicians performed 119 inpatient and 1,104 outpatient surgeries.”
Patients were being transferred to other hospitals in the region, Ramos said.
For Ramos, the struggles of corporate officials is not her concern.
“It is a terrible loss for the employees and the community,” she said. “Right now, I am concentrating on finding another job.”
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