New York, NY –
As St. Vincent’s Medical Center fights to stave off bankruptcy, the Greenwich Village hospital appears to have one less option. Continuum Health Partners has retracted its controversial proposal to take over the hospital, assume its debts, and shrink most of its operations.
Continuum’s CEO says he's withdrawing the offer because it was poorly received by St. Vincent’s board and by state health officials. Continuum is the parent company of Beth Israel and St. Luke’s-Roosevelt hospitals.
Continuum had offered to assume St Vincent's $700 million of debt, while shutting down most inpatient and emergency room services, and turning the hospital into an outpatient clinic. That plan sparked loud protests from hospital employees and local politicians, who say the community needs to have an emergency room.
St. Vincent’s is losing an estimated $5 to $10 million a week and Wednesday, Gov. Paterson began setting up a task force to sort out the hospital’s finances within a month.
Fred Mogul has been covering healthcare and medicine for WNYC since 2002. His beat takes him to hospitals, community clinics, doctors offices, health agencies, public schools and research labs across the metropolitan area. His work has appeared on NPR and in the New York Times, Time magazine and Philadelphia Inquirer, among others.
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