PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — Camden Clark Medical Center’s St. Joseph’s Campus will close by the end of November, resulting in about 60 employees losing their jobs, hospital officials announced Tuesday.
Consolidation of the Memorial and St. Joseph’s campuses was announced in 2012, with the change expected to take effect in the first quarter of 2017.
But on Tuesday, a release from the hospital said that due to declining inpatient volumes, the St. Joseph’s Campus would be closed to all inpatients no later than Aug. 15. The former St. Joseph’s Hospital will be closed to all other patients by Nov. 30 at the latest.
“With the national, state, and local health care scene changing, so has the demand for inpatient hospital beds and operating rooms,” said a Camden Clark release attributed to President and CEO Mike King. “The decline in inpatient demand has been dramatic, especially over the last 12 months.
“So much so that the hospital can now accommodate all inpatient acute care beds and related services (at) the Memorial Campus, nearly two years ahead of the original schedule.”
Hospital officials said the professional office building on the St. Joseph’s campus will remain open indefinitely to support the patients seeing their physicians located there.
The medical center will also be shutting down its skilled nursing facility, called the Transitional Care Unit, no later than Aug. 1. There are no plans to re-open the TCU unit in the near future, officials said.
Tim Brunicardi, Director of Marketing and Public Affairs for Camden Clark, said there will not be room for the unit at the Memorial Campus.
Since most of the medical center’s cardiac services were based at the St. Joseph’s Campus, Brunicardi said work is under way at Memorial Campus to accommodate all those services.
“There’s a timeline for completion so the services at St. Joseph’s will gradually migrate to the Memorial Campus over the next few months,” he said…