Most employees at Williamson Memorial Hospital will be offered jobs at a hospital in Kentucky after the West Virginia facility closes in 2014, the Kentucky hospital’s CEO said.
Williamson Appalachian Regional Healthcare in Kentucky recently filed with the West Virginia Healthcare Authority to purchase nearby Williamson Memorial Hospital for $15 million.
About 75 percent of the employees at Williamson Memorial will be offered work at ARH, Tim Hatfield, community CEO, said.
Hatfield said the “merger” will mean the Williamson area will have a strong, not-for-profit hospital rather than two facilities that compete for a declining number of patients.
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“Hospitals that are that close together, there’s a huge duplication of services and that’s what we face,” Hatfield said. “Health care truly has no borders. It’s not a Kentucky or West Virginia facility, it’s health care. People seek health care where the need is at and where they can get help.”
While about 75 percent of the Williamson Memorial employees will be offered jobs at ARH, Hatfield said he hopes the others will get jobs too.
ARH officials are in talks with two for-profit health care agencies that have expressed interest in subleasing Williamson Memorial and opening a medical facility there, offering work to the remaining members of the staff that ARH does not employ.
Date: November 16, 2013