Ellwood City Hospital’s financial woes have continued into the New Year. Employees say pre-Christmas checks still have not arrived, and previous paychecks have bounced.
As of Thursday, the biweekly checks due Dec. 21 had not been distributed. Parent company CEO Grant White attributed the delay to a “significant backlog in accounts receivable collections that is being rectified” in a Dec. 28 email to employees.
Mr. White added that he expected January would be “a very attractive cash collection month” and promised “everyone will get paid for their work.”
But coming only a month after Mr. White told a packed municipal building crowd that “the worst is over” and that the hospital would be profitable by year’s end, Ellwood City officials sound increasingly alarmed about the Lawrence County town’s only hospital.
“There were employees who couldn’t have Christmas because they didn’t receive their paycheck,” said Ellwood City Mayor Anthony Court, who’s been fielding calls from upset hospital staff. “It’s heartbreaking.”
Mr. Court, who is on the hospital’s board, said Thursday that he last spoke with Mr. White on Dec. 4 “and he made the same points about the hospital moving in a positive direction.” Instead, “It’s the complete opposite.”
The hospital’s next scheduled payday is Friday. “They don’t believe they’re getting paid again,” the mayor said.
Ellwood City Area Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman Jillian Court, no relation to the mayor, said she’d heard about the hospital’s paycheck delay, too, but “I was hoping it wasn’t true.
Mrs. Court, 28, was born at Ellwood City Hospital and worked in the dietary department at one time. The hospital “has been a staple in our town for a long time,” she said.
“We have a lot of older people who live in Ellwood City, so it’s very important to have a hospital.” The next-nearest hospital is about 30 minutes away. “I just hope that they can get everything straightened out and the hospital can stay open for our small community.”
Mr. White did not reply to an email request for comment Thursday.
Later, in a brief phone conversation, hospital CEO Beverly Annarumo said that Mr. White had forwarded the Post-Gazette email to her and that Mr. White would be responding to inquiries about the hospital.
Ellwood City Hospital was already losing millions of dollars yearly when Americore Health, a for-profit company based in Florida that has been acquiring financially-distressed community hospitals, bought the Lawrence County facility in October 2017.
Had Americore not stepped in, it is unclear what options the 106-year-old hospital had as efforts to affiliate with a larger system — as nearby Jameson in New Castle had done with UPMC — were unsuccessful.
“It was us or close,” Mr. White told the crowd at the Nov. 7 town hall meeting.
After that meeting, Mayor Court had remarked that he was “fully on board” with Americore’s plans to save Ellwood City’s hospital. His perspective has changed now, he said Thursday.
“It seems like a different direction, a different buyer, would have been more suitable for our community.”
Steve Twedt: stwedt@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1963.
First Published: January 3, 2019, 6:59 p.m.
