New England Public Radio

North Adams Emergency Room to Re-Open Monday

Starting at noon Monday, residents of Northern Berkshire County will have access to a nearby emergency room. The facility will replace the ER that shut down when North Adams Regional Hospital closed in March.

The Emergency Room will be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, but unlike its previous incarnation, it will not be attached to a full inpatient hospital. According to a spokesperson for Berkshire Health Systems, which will run the ERr, the staff will treat anyone who comes in for either critical or non-critical needs. If they need further care, they will likely be transferred to the company’s main hospital in Pittsfield or Baystate Medical Center in Springfield. Dick Alcombright is Mayor of North Adams.

 

“This takes a considerable amount of angst off our residents,” Alcombright says. “There will be continuing conversations now how we restore other services within the city.”

Berkshire Health Systems is in the process of buying the former North Adams hospital building. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has launched a study into the longterm health needs of the region, and whether re-opening a hospital there is sustainable.

Mass. State Senator: Community Hospitals Are In Trouble

North Adams Regional Hospital has been closed for almost a month, leaving many Berkshire County residents without nearby emergency care and hundreds without jobs. One ranking Massachusetts state senator says the future is bleak for similar small hospitals.

Berkshire Medical Center of Pittsfield plans to reopen the emergency room in North Adams in mid-May, with hopes of purchasing and operating the entire hospital. State Senator Stan Rosenberg of Amherst says in order for community hospitals to survive, this is the model they need to follow.

“When you’re a totally independent community hospital such as North Adams, your days are numbered unless you can affiliate with an institution that’s larger and has the ability to help subsidize the smaller facility within the region that’s being served,” Rosenberg says. ”

Rosenberg says he blames high health care costs for the financial troubles some hospitals have been facing. He says legislation passed two years ago by state lawmakers is designed to lower expenses, by requiring electronic record keeping and streamlined payment systems. For its part, the board of the now-defunct North Adams hospital blamed its money problems on a decline in the number of patients, and cuts in state and federal reimbursements.

North Adams ER Could Re-Open Week of May 19th

The emergency room at North Adams Regional Hospital could re-open in mid-May, more than seven weeks after the hospital abruptly closed. The agreement was announced Thursday during a federal bankruptcy court hearing in Springfield.

The North Adams emergency room would be a satellite of Pittsfield-based Berkshire Medical Center, according to a BMC statement. Berkshire Medical also plans to buy the now-vacant hospital building. But other groups have 45 days to place bids on it, which would trigger a bankruptcy auction. If Berkshire Medical does win the bid, the hospital says it plans to spend $10 million on repairs in North Adams. David Schildmeier, spokesman for the state nurses’ union says the agreement is an important first step.

“The ultimate solution that the community wants, the nurses and the employees want, is the restoration of a full-service hospital that meets the needs of the 38,000 residents who live and are served by that facility,” Schildmeier says.

A Berkshire Medical spokesperson declined to be interviewed. The hospital has not announced any plans to re-open more of the North Adams facility, though some services, like hospice, have continued uninterrupted. The agreement to re-open the emergency room is still subject to court approval, with a hearing set for April 30th.

Neal Frustrated In Delay In Re-Opening North Adams Regional Hospital

Massachusetts Congressman Richard Neal is expressing frustration at the pace of the federal permitting process involved in re-opening the former North Adams Regional Hospital.

The permitting process involves the Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services, also known as CMS. Neal says the delay is partly due to roadblocks in getting the hospital designated as a “critical care” facility. The Springfield Democrat says the designation would allow the hospital to get more money from Medicare and Medicaid.

“There are some arcane rules and procedures that appear not to be very much until there’s a problem. And then those rules and procedures are revisited from a different perspective. So I think that CMS is taking every necessary precaution. But not to miss the point, we’ve been very assertive in suggesting that that hospital in some shape and form needs to be re-opened,” Neal says.

Also complicating the hospital’s re-opening is a bankruptcy hearing, scheduled to continue on Thursday in Springfield, involving the hospital’s creditors, the state and the parent company of Berkshire Medical Center, which is negotiating to re-open at least part of the closed facility.

A Week After North Adams Regional Closed, A Look At Why Community Hospitals Fail

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and other officials face legal, financial and regulatory hurdles as they try to reopen the shuttered North Adams Regional Hospital. Over several decades, dozens of small community hospitals have closed in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Alan Sager has documented hospital closing trends nationally for a long time as a Boston University public health researcher. He told us one of the most powerful predictors of a closure is a city or town’s income; another is the number of patients on medicaid seeking hospital care.

Last week, Sager and his colleagues faxed Gov. Deval Patrick a letter calling on him to declare a public health emergency in order to keep the North Adams hospital open. They haven’t heard back from him yet.

Without Funding, North Adams Hospital – Including ER – Closes For Now

After a whole lot of legal maneuvering, it now looks like North Adams Regional Hospital – including its emergency room – will soon close.

In a statement, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley says that since there’s no funding available to run the hospital safely, she will not object to closing the ER over the weekend.

Coakley says her office will work with Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield to reopen the North Adams emergency room as soon as possible. Further, Coakley says her office will conduct a full investigation into the actions of the board of Northern Berkshire Healthcare, which owns the hospital.

The scene in North Adams on Friday was emotional, as community members held out hope for continued medical care.

A group of protesters including former employees and uniformed North Adams firemen gathered in the rain. Shortly after 10 a.m., several nurses exited after their final shift, to applause from the crowd.

Employees were told Tuesday that the hospital would close Friday. Nurse Kathleen Wilkinson recalls the rapid pace of events.

“I was at home. About quarter after 3, one of my co-workers called me,” Wilkinson says. “And she said ‘Did you hear?’ and I thought somebody died. And I found out the hospital died.”

Jennifer Dowling has been a nurse there for thirty years.

“This is all I’ve ever known,” Dowling says. “It’s just a sad day. A sad, sad day. A lot of blood, sweat and tears have been put into this place. This has been my family, my second family, for a long, long time.”

A group of protesters planned to maintain a vigil in the hospital’s dining room.

For the time being, the closest emergency rooms to North Adams will be in Pittsfield and Bennington, Vermont, both about a half-hour away.

New England Public Radio’s Sam Hudzik contributed reporting.