Cumberland River Hospital Announces Permanent Closing

Celina’s Cumberland River Hospital will permanently close its doors on March 1, due to insufficient revenue and financial losses.

The decision was made Thursday night during a Cumberland River Hospital Board of Trustees meeting. Cookeville Regional Medical Center CEO Paul Korth said the closing will cost 146 full-time and part-time employees their positions.

“Each employee up there is going to receive a letter from us, outlining the things that are going to be done,” Korth said. “Within that letter, each of those individuals will receive a listing of job openings here at the medical center that they are welcome to apply for and we will give them first priority.”

Korth said the hospital invested approximately 12 million dollars into Cumberland River since it became a subsidiary of Cookeville Regional in 2012.

“Reimbursements from all payers, what payers pay us anymore, continue to decline. On the flipside, the expenses continue to go up every year. Supplies go up; drug costs are a major cost increase,” Korth said. “Of course, the bottom line has been that the revenues and all the changes we have made up there to try to make that facility sound and feasible has just not worked out.”

Korth said the hospital will begin to find beds for current patients in other facilities before March 1.

“We don’t want to go up there, close the door, and put a chain and sign on the door saying ‘we are closed,'” Korth said. “We are trying to do this in a smooth and effective way to where we can have proper notification to the patients that utilize that facility.”

Residents of Clay County and Celina will have to travel anywhere from 20 to 40 miles to reach a facility.

“There are still two, well three hospitals, within a 25 to 30-minute drive from there. Tompkinsville, Kentucky has a facility, Burkesville, Kentucky has a facility, and then Livingston has a facility,” Korth said. “So there are still facilities and we are only about 40 minutes away.”

Korth said he has not found a buyer for the building.

“I haven’t stopped trying to find buyers. It’s just all those buyers we talked to are having difficulty trying to come up with money,” Korth said. “It is no different than individuals trying to purchase a home in the year 2019. It’s not like it was in 2012 or 1999.”

The Board of Trustees voted unanimously Thursday evening to close the facility. Cumberland River Hospital has been serving Clay County since 1965.