Trinity’s only hospital announces closure

TRINITY – Our news partners at KETK report that the Mid Coast Health System has announced that Mid Coast Medical Center in Trinity will cease operations starting on April 25 following months of financial instability.

“Despite our team’s tireless work to restore services in Trinity, we are simply unable to continue operations under the current financial circumstances,” CEO of Mid Coast Health System, Brett Kirkham said. “This is a deeply painful decision for all of us especially in consideration of the local commitment from the staff to serve patients in the Trinity community.”

According to Trinity Memorial Hospital District board president Marjory Pulvino, Mid Coast Medical Center is Trinity County’s only hospital. Pulvino said that once the hospital closes, the next nearest hospital will be in Huntsville, which is over 20 miles away in Walker County.

According to a Friday press release from Mid Coast Health System, their Trinity center is facing the same problems that many rural hospitals are. Mid Coast cited delays in Medicare and Medicare billing, commercial insurance contract delays, lower than expected revenue from patient co-pays, increasing costs of supplies and insufficient local tax revenue as setbacks their hospital faced.

Mid Coast Health System said the hospital had closed before in 2017 and they had hoped to receive the Rural Emergency Hospital (REH) designation, which would secure additional funding for the hospital from the federal government. However, the hospital was reportedly not operational by the time the REH eligibility cutoff happened in Dec. 2020.

“We strongly believe that if Mid Coast Medical Center Trinity were eligible for REH status, it would thrive and continue to meet the community’s emergency and outpatient healthcare needs,” Kirkham said. “We are urging our elected officials to support a waiver that would allow the Trinity hospital to access this critical support for a potential reopening in the future.”

Mid Coast encouraged the community to contact U.S. Senators for Texas John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, along with U.S. Representative Pete Sessions, in order to advocate for the hospital to get a waiver allowing them to qualify for the REH designation.

“This is a call to action for the Trinity community, our leader and our nation to recognize the unique challenges rural hospitals face and to fight for solutions that keep care close to home,” Kirkham concluded.

Pulvino said the Trinity Memorial Hospital District Board of Directors was “very disappointed” to learn about the closure but reassured the community that they’re working to find a new hospital system to take over the hospital and emergency room.

“The board wants the community to know that the Board is working diligently to find a quality hospital system to take over the hospital and ER operations, and at this time is in discussion with a reputable hospital system,” Pulvino said. “In addition we are in discussion with other groups to continue high quality services at the clinic. We agree that the Rural Emergency Hospital designation would be the ideal solution.”