Hospital in heart of Central Appalachian coalfield closes, citing restrictions imposed due to covid-19 pandemic

The hospital has served Mingo County, population 25,000.

The covid-19 pandemic has killed a rural hospital. Williamson Memorial Hospital in West Virginia, on the Kentucky border, is closing today, citing restrictions on its operations while a debtor-in-possession owner tried to get out of bankruptcy.

Interim CEO Gene Preston said on the hospital's Facebook page, "Over the past seven months, together we were able to right size the organization, streamline operations and fix a large portion of the revenue-cycles issues. Unfortunately, the decline in volumes experienced from the current pandemic were to sudden and severe for us to sustain operations."

"The hospital initially announced the impending closure back in March and said they were currently operating as a debtor-in-possession," Jarrid McCormick reports for the Williamson Daily News. "About a week later, Williamson Health & Wellness Center Inc. announced that a $3.68 million bid to purchase most of the assets of Williamson Memorial Hospital had been approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court." The deal was to have been closed April 30, with a local group that bought the 76-bed hospital from a Tennessee-based chain in 2018. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said Monday that elective surgeries in the state's hospitals couldn't resume before April 28.

Preston said the prospective new owner "has expressed his desire to seek out the needed partners for emergency services, lab and X-ray to return to the hospital in the future. It is for this reason I am confident that services will return to that facility to serve the Williamson community once our country’s health-care system stabilizes post-pandemic."

Google map

The hospital is the only one in Mingo County, but it is only three miles by road from the Tug Valley ARH Regional Medical Center in South Williamson, Ky., across the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River.

The hospital was one of five cited in a CNN story about rural hospitals at risk because states have banned elective or non-urgent procedures to preserve protective gear and beds in case of a surge of covid-19 cases. Even if Congress helps them financially, they will probably be more vulnerable than before, said Randy Tobler, CEO and physician at Scotland County Hospital in northeast Missouri, one of many that have furloughed staff. "There's no foundational change," he told CNN.