Rural Tenn. hospital reopens; new owner blames hospital closures on Southern states' refusal to expand Medicaid

Cumberland River Hospital in Celina, Tenn. (Cookeville Herald-Citizen photo by Ben Wheeler)

Rural hospitals have been closing at alarming rates over the past decade, so it's always good news when one reopens. That's what happened this week in Celina, Tenn., where Cumberland River Hospital reopened, a year after it was forced to close for lack of a buyer. But it's been a rocky road.

Cookeville Regional Medical Center, two counties away, owned the hospital, which served as a major employer for the county of 8,000. Johnny Presley, a physician assistant who owns three health clinics, recently purchased the hospital and has already opened the emergency room and a daytime clinic, Ben Wheeler reports for the Herald-Citizen in Cookeville.

Celina in Clay County, Tennessee
(Wikipedia map)

Presley said he is trying to find more staff so the hospital can start treating more serious cases, but it's difficult to find employees for a rural hospital. He said it has also been hard to bring in money during the pandemic when hospitals aren't doing many elective procedures and the cost of supplies has increased greatly. "It's a double-edged sword," he told Wheeler. "Unless the government steps in and bails out hospitals in general, I don't see how any facility overcomes this."

Presley, who is running an uphill campaign for U.S. senator in the Aug. 6 Republican primary, "blamed hospital closures across the South on the refusal by members of his party in states like Tennessee to expand Medicaid insurance coverage, an option under the Affordable Care Act," Richard Fausset and Rick Rojas reported April 9 for The New York Times. Rural hospitals in such states are far more likely to close, according to a 2018 Government Accountability Office report.

"The governors of the Southern states did not take this seriously enough," Presley told the Times. "I think we’re really going to suffer through this pandemic." Last year The Daily Yonder and Kentucky Health News contrasted the fate of the hospital with its neighbor in Kentucky, which expanded Medicaid.