Merit Health Central in Jackson, Miss., has discontinued many services as it plans to acquire 50 psychiatric beds from another Merit Health facility. However, the hospital's lease agreement requires it to serve as a "full service general acute care hospital," raising questions about the service shift's legality, Mississippi Today reported Oct. 12.
The hospital discontinued urology, neurology, orthopedics and general surgery in October, according to the newspaper. In September, the hospital shuttered the state's only burn center, and it has moved cardiovascular and neonatal intensive care services to the suburbs.
Merit Health Central services a primarily low-income population. Data collected in 2020 showed a 20.4 percent poverty rate in Hinds County, where the hospital is located. The facility incurred nearly $16 million in net uninsured costs in 2022, according to Mississippi Today.
Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems — which owns Merit Health Central and eight other hospitals in Mississippi — aims to move 50 psychiatric beds to Central from Merit Health River Region in Vicksburg, Miss., which will eventually be demolished. It will cost $6.5 million to renovate Central to accommodate those beds, and Central will become a primarily psychiatric facility, the newspaper reported.
Hinds County leased the Merit Health Central facility to Health Management Associates in the early 2000s, according to the newspaper. When Community Health Partners acquired Health Management Associates in 2013, it also acquired the hospital's lease requirements. In addition to operating a full-service facility in a low-access area, the county requires the hospital to provide care for inmates at its local detention center.
The county's legal team is investigating the service cuts' effect on the community and has been in contact with Merit Health, Hinds County Administrator Kenneth Wayne Jones told the newspaper.
"We have been in contact with county leadership about the lease as well as the challenges Merit Health has with labor costs and staffing challenges facing all healthcare organizations following the COVID pandemic, inflationary pressures and other dynamics, including the state’s decision not to expand Medicaid," Jana Fuss, director of marketing at Merit Health, told the newspaper.