St Vincent Charity Medical Center will close Friday — four days earlier than originally planned, hospital officials announced in a statement Wednesday.
The hospital, located in Cleveland’s Central neighborhood, will stop inpatient care and medical emergency services earlier than expected because many of the outgoing acute care and surgical staff found other jobs and left before the hospital’s planned closure, the statement said.
“Our staffing level is reduced and will not permit us to function as an inpatient hospital safely," wrote hospital leadership. "Patient safety is our number one priority."
On September 14, the Sisters of Charity Health System, which runs St. Vincent hospital, announced it would end inpatient services in 30 days, citing declining patient volumes and financial impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Tuesday, the medical center will transition to an outpatient medical campus. It will continue to provide outpatient addiction treatment and operate the psychiatric emergency department at the facility in Central, according to the hospital. The campus will also provide outpatient mental health services, primary care, internal medicine and specialty clinics and urgent care.
Health care staffing challenges hospital systems
St. Vincent's closure has meant that many of those employed at the hospital would shortly likely be looking for work. Other hospital systems in the area, who are struggling in the wake of the pandemic to recruit, appear to have attempted to capitalize on the newly available health care workers.
In 2019, about 1,400 people who were employed at St. Vincent, federal tax records show. When the closures were originally announced, the hospital said it planned to keep approximately 100 caregivers on staff.
Shortly after St. Vincent's closure was announced, MetroHealth, a hospital system based in Cuyahoga County, held several job fairs and officials expressed an interest in hiring St. Vincent employees. It also recently launched a new behavioral health hospital, which will open in phases depending on hiring, the hospital system said.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals had many open positions due to retirements and demand for more caregivers caused by increased coverage to services through the Affordable Care Act, according to the Ohio Hospitals Association (OHA). During the pandemic, it became increasingly difficult to fill open spots because employees were dealing with burnout and quitting or leaving the field entirely, the group said.
Now hospitals across the state are recruiting nurses, behavioral and mental health providers and advanced practitioners and physicians, the OHA said.
The shortage of health care workers has meant cuts in services. In contacting hospitals, OHA said it has found about 17%, or about 4,700 inpatient beds, have been taken out of service in Ohio due to workforce challenges.
St. Vincent isn't the only hospital system that is cutting services, at least in part, due to staffing shortages. In August, University Hospitals discontinued inpatient, surgical and emergency services at their Bedford location in southeast Cuyahoga County.
