500 workers laid off by HMC on Christmas Eve

Hawaii Medical Center West in Ewa closed its hospital to the public Dec. 28 after transferring the last of its five remaining patients to Hawaii Medical Center East in Liliha – but its business and finance offices remained open and operating. Indications are that HMC’s hospitals may shut down in early January, leaving 990 employees jobless. The hospitals laid off 500 people already – they received notices on Christmas Eve.

HMC officials stopped short of saying the Ewa hospital on Fort Weaver Road was closed and completely shut down. But there are no more patients at that facility and no employees needed to continue providing patient care there. HMC’s remaining 30 patients — long-term-care or skilled-nursing patients now housed at the Liliha hospital — are waiting for beds to free up at other health-care facilities before they can be transferred.

Hospital officials announced on Dec. 16 that they would be forced to shut down the two hospitals after failing to reach a deal with a potential new buyer for the hospitals as part of a second go-around in Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. HMC found a potential buyer in California-based Prime Healthcare Services, which put in a minimum bid of $25 million earlier this month. But the parties involved could not agree on terms of a final deal, particularly after St. Francis objected to the deal as it was proposed.

The sisters of the Roman Catholic religious order sold the hospitals to Hawaii Medical Center in 2007 for $68 million.

The closure of the Hawaii Medical Center hospitals on Oahu created enough extra business at Wahiawa General Hospital that the hospital was able to shelve plans to cut jobs and pay for some workers. KITV reported that emergency room cases nearly tripled one night last week after Hawaii Medical Center closed its emergency rooms, and that the extra admissions have put the hospital near capacity. Wahiawa General CEO Don Olden told the station the hospital was two weeks away from implementing the job eliminations and cutting hours.