Warren, Ohio community leaders are worried Trumbull Regional Medical Center may soon close or lose vital services as its parent company continues to face financial problems.
Steward Health Care owns 32 hospitals across the country, including the Warren-based medical center and Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital. The Dallas-based for-profit is reportedly in millions of dollars of debt.
If it closed, more than 700 jobs and up to about $1.5 million in yearly tax revenue could potentially be lost.
Steward would not respond to Ideastream Public Media's inquiries on the future of the facilities. The company has not issued a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notice, which requires a company with more than 100 employees to notify the state 60 days in advance of closing.
Local leaders are seeing what they can do to help. Trumbull County Commissioner Denny Malloy said he’s been in meetings with Steward and the Youngstown-Warren Chamber of Commerce to discuss the health system’s finances as it relates to the facilities in Warren.
"It is top priority right now to work through this issue," Malloy said.
Steward released its plans last week for how it will get out of its financial hole. They include: hiring an outside firm to restructure the health system, negotiating new employment agreements and selling non-essential assets. The company sold its Ohio lab operations to Quest earlier this month.
Trumbull County Mental Health and Recovery Board’s April Caraway said a top concern is whether the hospital will cut 36 inpatient behavioral health beds, which the hospital had previously reported it was losing money on.
“I have 16 patients in our Heartland Hospital today and they have no open beds," she said. "So if Steward were to close these units, I don't know where folks would go.”
Namita Waghray, with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Ohio Council 8, said the union represents about 700 nursing assistants, technicians and other hospital workers at Trumbull Regional Medical Center and Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital. She said she would not comment as the union was preparing to enter negotiations with the hospital.
Steward had been growing services at Trumbull Regional Medical Center over the last several years, including adding a heart clinic, family medicine practice and expansion of its behavioral health services.
But the hospital has been plagued by staffing shortages and dodged rumors that it had plans to close after Steward shuttered the Northside Regional Medical Center in Youngstown shortly after acquiring the Ohio hospitals in 2018. Hospital leadership laid off 288 employees, citing steady declines in patient volume over many years.
Mercy Health operates St. Joseph Warren Hospital, a 135-bed hospital in Warren. The other nearby hospitals include Sharon Regional Medical Center in Pennsylvania, St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital, St. Elizabeth Boardman, Akron Children's Hospital and the Surgical Hospital at Southwoods.
Caraway said the area is short on healthcare.
“As a person who was born and raised here in Trumbull County, we need two hospitals," she said.
Meanwhile, Steward’s financial problems have already affected two local businesses who have taken the company to court over tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid invoices.
Niles-based Penn Care, an ambulance supplies company, alleged the hospital has yet to pay about $68,000 for supplies it purchased. Becdel Controls, a Niles company, also said Steward has not paid them for electrical work it did totaling over $61,000, according to court records.
