Another rural Georgia hospital shuts its doors

Hutcheson Medical Center in northwest Georgia closed its doors to patients Friday morning — the fifth rural hospital to close in the Peach State since 2013.

The hospital’s closure came after months under bankruptcy protection. And a last-minute bid by California-based Prime Healthcare to purchase the Fort Oglethorpe hospital failed to win approval from Hutcheson’s creditors.

 

“This decision is a blow to both the economy and the accessibility of health care in the … area,” Prime Healthcare attorney Troy Schell said in a statement.

Dozens of rural Georgia hospitals are in serious financial straits. They face aging populations, growing numbers of uninsured patients and new government regulations. Earlier this year, a committee of hospital executives, elected officials and health care experts laid out a plan to try and stabilize rural Georgia’s fragile health care system by improving coordination among existing hospitals and improving technology in ambulances, among other efforts.

Many hospitals, however, continue to struggle to remain open.

Hutcheson Medical Center CEO Farrell Hayes said Friday that no patients were remaining when the closure occurred at 7 a.m.

Hayes said there’s still a chance that a purchase deal can occur before the hospital must surrender its license within 10 days of closure. But he did not sound hopeful that an agreement could be reached.
“After today, we’ll have 150 employees,’’ he said, and most of those work at Hutcheson’s nursing home, which is still open. A year and a half ago, Hutcheson said it employed 900 people.

“Any hospital closure is an economic development disaster,’’ said Jimmy Lewis, CEO of HomeTown Health, an association of rural hospitals in Georgia.

Companies seeking to move to an area always ask about the availability of local health care facilities, he noted.

Prime Healthcare, which recently forged a deal to save the struggling Southern Regional Medical Center in metro Atlanta, issued a statement Thursday evening that expressed disappointment in the Hutcheson outcome.

“Prime Healthcare worked tirelessly with the key stakeholders to save this hospital and keep over 400 dedicated people employed during the holiday season,’’ Schell said.

Prime Healthcare Services and the nonprofit Prime Healthcare Foundation own and operate 38 acute-care hospitals in 11 states. They are known for acquiring financially distressed hospitals and turning them around.

Regions Bank and Erlanger Health System are Hutcheson’s primary creditors, according to the Walker County Messenger/Catoosa County News.

“Hutcheson Medical Center is closing because Regions Bank believes it stands to make more money in a liquidation fire sale than working with Prime and others to keep it open,’’ Schell said. “Their actions are shameful and will affect thousands of Georgia residents.”

A spokesman for Regions Bank declined to comment Friday on the hospital closure.

The foundation’s purchase of Southern Regional Medical Center, in Riverdale a few miles south of Atlanta, is set for review by the Georgia attorney general. Southern Regional would be Prime’s first hospital in Georgia.

The impact of Hutcheson’s closing on patients would be eased somewhat due to Fort Oglethorpe’s proximity to Chattanooga. The Tennessee city is nine miles away.

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