Downtown Hospital to get a bailout

NewYork-Presbyterian will acquire Lower Manhattan's last hospital

New York Downtown Hospital
New York Downtown Hospital

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is bailing out the financially-stricken New York Downtown Hospital, the last remaining hospital in Lower Manhattan, Crain’s reported.

NewYork-Presbyterian has asked state officials for permission to acquire the hospital, which struggled for years with persistent operating losses. Downtown’s losses, NewYork-Presbyterian officials wrote in December to the state’s health department, would continue in 2013 “unless the current situation is changed.”

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The only institution below 14th Street since St. Vincent’s Hospital was shuttered in 2010, Downtown will become NewYork-Presbyterian’s sixth campus. A likely transformation is in the cards for the 180-bed community hospital, which according to NewYork-Presbyterian’s letter, would transform the hospital into “a sustainable and financially feasible model of care.”

The deal follows Montefiore Medical Center’s acquisition last week of troubled New York Westchester Square Medical Center. Montefiore intends to convert the hospital into an ambulatory surgery and primary-care facility with an emergency room. A spokeswoman for NewYork-Presbyterian told Crain’s that Downtown would remain a community hospital but declined to further elaborate. [Crain’s]  – Hiten Samtani