Haywood County’s only hospital will end inpatient and emergency services

April 30--NASHVILLE -- Haywood County's only hospital, Haywood Park Community Hospital in Brownsville, will end inpatient and emergency room services on July 31 and become an "urgent care" clinic offering treatment for minor illnesses and non-life-threatening injuries.

The hospital's chief executive officer, Joel Southern, notified community leaders in an e-mail late Tuesday afternoon that it will begin operating as Haywood Park Urgent Care on Aug. 1. It will also offer physicals, immunizations and outpatient services such as X-rays.

Brownsville Mayor Jo Matherne said city and county officials will work with the hospital "to make the transition as smooth as possible" and to try to find an alternative for emergency medical care for residents. The nearest hospital with an emergency room is 25 miles away in Jackson.

"We have a chronic need for emergency medical service," she said.

Southern was not available for comment, his office said, but he wrote in his e-mail that "maintaining a full-service hospital for the current inpatient demand from acute and emergency patients is not sustainable. Changes in admission guidelines have caused a steady decline in patients admitted to our hospital, from 1,300 in 2009 to fewer than 250 in 2013. Emergency room visits have declined, averaging 15 or fewer patients a day over the past few months."

He also cited cuts in federal reimbursements and the state's refusal to expand Medicaid.

"Rural hospitals such as ours are being particularly impacted by new cuts in federal program reimbursement as part of the Affordable Care Act. These cuts were based on more people having insurance, whether through Medicaid expansion or the insurance exchanges. Tennessee has forgone the option to cover more individuals with Medicaid, with no means to address the unsustainable burden of uncompensated care," Southern wrote.

Tennessee Hospital Association President Craig Becker said Wednesday that the Brownsville conversion is the first Tennessee hospital closure publicly linked by its operators to the state's refusal to expand its Medicaid program. Under the ACA, the federal government will pay 100 percent of the costs of expansion to uninsured people with incomes up to 137 percent of federal poverty level for three years, 2014 through 2016. The federal share would decline to 90 percent, with the state picking up 10 percent, by 2020.

"The closing of Haywood is just the start. There's going to be others, there's no doubt about it," said Becker. "The hospitals just cannot accept the cuts that are coming in the ACA versus not having the Medicaid expansion."

Haywood Park has 62 beds and is owned by Community Health Systems Inc., a for-profit hospital company based in Franklin, Tenn., with 208 hospitals in 29 states. The Brownsville hospital was built in 1974 by Hospital Corp. of America, to replace a county-owned hospital built in 1931. Methodist Healthcare Memphis bought it in 1988, renovated and expanded it. CHS bought it in 2003.

The hospital said "some employees will be displaced." Matherne said she's not sure how many positions will be cut but that she was told the hospital will work to place employees who lose their jobs in Brownsville at other hospitals in the region.

State House Democratic Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh of Ripley, who represents Haywood County, blamed the closure on "indifference by Republican leadership" in the state. "For over a year now, we have warned this administration that refusing federal funds to expand Medicaid would result in the closure of our rural hospitals. It's finally happened in Haywood County," Fitzhugh said.

Democrats have charged that the state's failure to expand Medicaid means it is turning down $2.5 million in federal funds per day.

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