Hospital may shut ER on Tuesday

From the Daily Star

Hospital may shut ER on Tuesday

Employees of The Hospital in Sidney have received a memo stating that the facility’s emergency room could close at 7 a.m. Tuesday.

"Obviously, it’s an unpopular decision that we have no choice but to make," said Margaret Suriano, president of The Hospital’s board of trustees. "It will be a painful decision but a decision totally out of our control."

The memo was dated Saturday.

The closure is not definite, Suriano said Sunday, but is a possible scenario if negotiations for pharmacy and emergency room services do not come through in time.


The potential closure stems from a lack of a pharmacy license at The Hospital, spokeswoman Patricia Charvat said.


"If you don’t have pharmacy, you can’t have an emergency room," Charvat said Sunday. "If we can’t resolve this, we may need to make a decision to close the emergency room."


The pharmacy rule is a state regulation.


"As many of you know, the members of our pharmacy department all gave notice a few weeks ago," Kevin Haughney, chief executive officer of The Hospital, said in the memo.


The contract with NES Healthcare Group, which provides physicians for The Hospital’s emergency room, also expires today, according to the memo.


"We have been talking with the company to see if we can make arrangements to extend the contract for a short period of time. However, the money necessary to do this may be more than we can afford given our dire financial situation," the memo said. "Without this company, we cannot operate the ER."