Massachusetts state officials working to re-open bankrupt rural hospital

The abrupt closure of North Adams Regional Hospital in the rural community of North Adams, Mass., created a public outcry and has gotten legislators and policy makers involved in trying to broker a deal whereby another health system may be able to take over and re-open the facility.

Local NBC affiliate WWLP television reports that the Attorney General and the state’s Department of Health and Human Services are in talks with Berkshire Medical Center to take over operations, particularly the emergency room and diagnostic imaging departments, at North Adams Regional Hospital, even as there is some doubt over whether the hospitals creditors, who now control the facility, will allow Berkshire Medical Center full access to the hospital.

North Adams Regional Hospital announced that it was filing for bankruptcy two weeks ago and would close all operations, including the community’s sole emergency room, within a few days. Although the hospital market in Massachusetts has contracted considerably in response to health care reform, most facilities were merged into larger healthcare systems with clear transitions in care, records and the jobs of the clinicians and physicians employed at the smaller facilities. Not so with North Adams Regional Hospital. According to the Boston Globe, this is the first permanent closing of an acute-care hospital in Massachusetts in over a decade, and the suddenness of the announcement has led to some soul searching in this leading healthcare reform state.

“Some might suppose that a functioning free market protects needed and well-run hospitals while closing unneeded and inefficient ones. Sadly, that pattern seldom prevails. Low-cost, efficient hospitals are not likelier to survive. But hospitals in wealthier places, with more patients insured by higher-paying insurers, rarely close. Some call this survival of the fattest,” wrote Alan Sager, a professor of health policy and management at Boston University School of Public Health in the Boston Globe this week.

Because North Adams Regional Hospital was also the community’s major employer, the facility’s closure may diminish the town’s overall economic health as well. Nurses laid off from North Adams Regional Hospital picketed the bankruptcy hearings in Springfield on Monday, Mass Live reported.

According to bankruptcy court fillings, the hospital’s assets are between $1 million and $10 million, but its liabilities could be as high as $50 million.