Without a Suitor, New York's St. Vincent's to Close

After a long battle to turn around its sinking finances, 400-bed St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan has begun the process of closing down, according to a report in The New York Times.

The board of St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers has voted to close the flagship hospital in New York's Greenwich Village, after repeated efforts to find a partner failed.

Elective surgeries are ending as of April 14, and while inpatient service will be shuttered, Gov. David Patterson has pledged to help the hospital's board and the state Department of Health in efforts to preserve some of the hospital's community programs. One option, according to the report, is transforming the inpatient hospital into an urgent care center with some outpatient services.

Most recently, Mount Sinai Medical Center had suggested and then withdrawn an offer to partner with St. Vincent's, which may now have to sell off its real estate to repay its estimated $700 million of debt, according to the Times.

Read The New York Times' story on St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan.