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View Full Version : Southwest Hospital in Atlanta Files for Bankruptcy


concernedstudent
10-13-2004, 12:17 AM
Here is an article about the hospital that works with Spartan students. Please continue to support the hospital since they generously allow us to do our clinical rotations there.

Struggling hospital files for bankruptcy protection
Megan Woolhouse
Southwest Hospital and Medical Center filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sept. 10 and named a new chief restructuring officer.

Ron Weitz has taken over as the new temporary chief executive at the 125-bed hospital, located at 501 Fairburn Road in southwest Atlanta.

He replaces Marie Cameron, who had been CEO of the financially strained hospital for nine years. Cameron vacated the position two months ago after the hospital's board of trustees failed to renew her contract.

Weitz works for Kurron Shares of America Inc., a health-care restructuring firm. He took control of day-to-day operations at the hospital on Sept. 10.

Through Kurron, Weitz was also involved in the restructuring of South Fulton Medical Center when that hospital filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001. Kurron helped staunch losses of more than $1 million a month at South Fulton Medical Center, and the hospital was later bought by Tenet Healthcare Corp.

Hospital officials at Southwest wouldn't mind seeing a similar turnaround. The hospital has $25 million in debt, according to Johnnie L. Clark, chairman of Southwest's board of trustees, and that figure could rise as Kurron conducts its financial review. The bankruptcy filing came when creditors took action against the hospital for lack of payment, she said.

Clark said about 70 percent of its patients are indigent and that the hospital offered about $7 million in uncompensated care last year. The hospital received only $1.2 million from the Indigent Care Trust Fund, a state fund that funnels matching federal monies to hospitals in need.

"You wonder how we've been able to keep our doors open this long," Clark said

ZAATARI
10-13-2004, 09:54 AM
Filing for bankrupcy does not always mean bad news,its a common move to restructure and get rid of debt as well as get fedral loans/help like what happen with MCI,current news with US airways....Southwest hospital is a good hospital,they signed affiliation agreement with Emory University of Health care 3/22/97[Atlanta inquirer newspaper 3/22/97 adition] and hope they continue their affiliations with Emory.The student body should put emphasis on the FSMB upcomming reviews,NY,FL,NJ applications and CA site visit and that is more important because if the FSMB decides to adopt CA reviews then it will be over for all of us.
I was part of committe that reviewed med school standards[Arab board]and all they have to do [free advise]:Hire 6 professors to head the depts[many outstanding professors who just retired will be happy to teach in St Lucia],stack the library with books,restructure the program ,and improve the campus look[campus beautifications program],clinicals seems good with Yale/Emory/Cook county hospitals,Spartan then will be better than most of the school I visited in the Middle East.Good luck

ZAATARI
10-13-2004, 09:59 AM
to avoids attacks, I meant Yale,Emory affiliated hospitals Griffin/Southwest].