Eugene’s mayor has asked Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek to force the PeaceHealth hospital to keep open in the City of Eugene. The company is closing PeaceHealth University District Medical Center due to massive financial losses of up to $24 million a year.
The site serves homeless and druggies, which may be part of the cash flow problems. PeaceHealth built a massive new flagship campus 10 minutes away in Springfield in 2008.
Eugene Mayor Lucy Vinis keynoted a rally on Monday, calling on Kotek and the Oregon Health Authority to deny the hospital its plans to close, since it is the only hospital in Eugene.
PeaceHealth, a not-for-profit, also runs a medical clinic in Craig and a hospital in Ketchikan, Alaska, as well as six hospital centers in Oregon and nine in Washington state, its home base.
But even as PeaceHealth has reduced its workforce, it reported a $240.7 million operating loss for the 2023 fiscal year, on top of $252 million the year before. Right now, its operating margin is -7.3%.
S&P Global downgraded PeaceHealth’s credit score in July.
“The downgrades reflect our view of PeaceHealth’s substantial and accelerating multi-year operating losses coupled with our expectation that improving its performance could take some time,” the ratings company explained.
Fitch, a bond ratings service, had earlier this year downgraded PeaceHealth, citing the company’s poor cash position and describing “the considerable operating stress PeaceHealth has faced recently. Despite these challenges, Fitch expects PeaceHealth’s operating results to show steady and significant improvement over time.”
According to the Lund Report, almost all of the system’s hospitals have either lost money or broken even for several years.
That’s an interesting concept. Ordering a private, non-profit not to close even though they are not making enough money to pay their bills? Who pays the workers then? Or the light bill etc etc. Oh I know…The State of Oregon or City of Eugene (taxpayers). Or the state will force them to lower wages or who knows what else.
But my wife used the Peace Health Hospital in Eugene awhile back. Very nice facility.
If Peace Health in Eugene is running in the red due to unpaid services given to “the homeless and druggies”, then all of their financial problems will be remedied quickly when they vacate that lucrative area in Eugene and sell it to the very nearby and financially well-endowed University of Oregon. The next question will be, how Peace Health will use, invest, or otherwise dispose of this predictably enormous profit?
Your words were the same I had! Firstly, why does the author call them “druggies?” It appears that Peace Health who serves the desperate in downtown Eugene! I have been there many times with my mom when she was very ill and was delighted by the care she received. I have also been in the er and they are just people that need help desperately! When we are sick, we need help, but Peace Health only thinks of the $! $24M is a drop in the bucket! Don’t forget they have their cash cow in Springfield! Where are these folks supposed to get service? My heart breaks. In addition they mentioned the mental health unit will be closed! Thank you for your astute words!
Maybe(?), SEARCH will pickup the Hospital assets in Craig and Ketchikan?
The reason Peace Health is even operating on POW and in Ketchikan is that the residents there gave SEARHC the boot some years back…..And there was a reason they did.
Worked at Peace Health in Ketchikan. One of the worst run hospitals I’ve ever seen.
It sounds like their profit margins have not been “safe and effective”.
Must be another case of coinciditis.
Damn. And watch SERHC sweep in.
SERHC bears watching closely.
I bet its workforces we’re made up of voting Democrats as well as non voters whom didn’t care to pay attention what majority type of leaders are running employers into the ground before they find out because of poor management practices will be looking for another job. You know I see people today especially those employees who are management they don’t read enough to improve their manage and work skills like managers in past they had personal libraries all dedicated to their field.
Here in Juneau Searhc is everywhere. Taking over buildings that could not support a regular business, or closed due to COVID closures and skyrocketing property taxes. We have a new palatial building built from the ground up on land that was vacant for years. Something going on here, cornering SE Alaska Healthcare.
Yup. You’ve probably heard the very persistent rumor they want Bartlett.
I’m not alleging anything, put the speed of their growth, combined with the way they “acquire” smaller providers is…curious.
If we had a newspaper I’d be surprised they haven’t done a really deep dive into this. But we have the Empire.
I’m still unclear how a native healthcare facility can gobble up everything in site and not be in violation of something.
Maybe this is why Juneau Urgent Med opened a weed shop sometime past. Diversity in income.
It’s a “non-profit” – it’s not supposed to make a profit. But neither should it have losses – that’s a management issue.
They sued me for 2000 dollars for taking my pulse … im still alive and kikkin but not because of them …
Non profit that serves homeless and druggies?
Someone has to foot the bill….looking like taxpayers on the hook to me.
I have a picture of Joe Biden sniffing Tina Kotek’s hair while He was in Oregon campaigning for her.
Its one of those memories that had been shelved but now has resurfaced.
I will put up a healthy bet with anyone she decides to rape the taxpayers once again.
I knew Oregon was going down the tubes when the Carter administration destroyed the logging industry in 1978. That was my incentive to leave the end of “The Oregon Trail”.
It took a several decades but now another democrat has terminated the oil and gas industry in “The Last Frontier” and it is no longer “North to the Future” (those were my favorite mud flaps) on the Haul Road.
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