Mercy, RIP
Mercy of Northern New York’s desperate effort to survive may have hit its final pothole this week when the state Department of Health directed the facility’s owners to submit a closure plan.
The action has local governments scrambling, with the City Council worried about the effect an empty Mercy would have on its budget, and county officials trying to figure out how to deal with the backlash from the relatives of 179 elderly nursing home patients that might end up scattered across Northern and Central New York. Samaritan Health System, operator of Samaritan Medical Center and Samaritan Keep Home, has been in frenetic talks with the state to act as a receiver for Mercy, which could keep the facility open for a certain period of time.
Despite all this concern, none of these folks are really suggesting that Mercy keep on — especially in the way it has been, with payrolls being met late, health insurance payments going unpaid and vendors left with their empty hands out. The city would be far happier if Mercy’s property were taken over by General Electric Capital Co., holder of the Mercy mortgage, and sold to some enterprise that would actually pay the property taxes and utility bills. Samaritan would like to see it stay open at least until word comes down on a HEAL-NY grant application for a consortium of providers that it heads. In Samaritan and the consortium’s perfect world, Mercy could remain a “parking spot” for its 179 residents until new facilities could be built in the immediate area. Then, the residents could be moved into the new nursing homes and skilled nursing facilities and life support could be pulled in a sort of Mercy killing.
The cynical view is that Mercy has become a helpless cause, a punch-drunk fighter barely able to stand, let alone lift a finger in its defense. The politicians and other health care facilities weighing in on Mercy now, trying, it would seem, to right the ship, really don’t have Mercy’s interests at heart. This is not to say, however, that Mercy’s patients are being forgotten. Samaritan’s offer ultimately wouldn’t help Mercy, but it would offer some stability for its elderly residents and their families while alternative facilities are being created.
The cynical view would also consider the timing of the state’s demand for a closing plan, just weeks after Mercy, for whatever reason, failed to join the local coalition and submitted its own HEAL-NY grant application. It’s a little hard not to think that the application might have engendered scrutiny that Mercy could not bear. Mercy officials didn’t shy away from the fact that a HEAL-NY grant could make the facility healthy — at least for a time.
In reality, Mercy is not a Bank of America; it is not too big to fail. It has been in bankruptcy twice in the past 15 years, and its finances are so dire that U.S. Bankruptcy Court removed its protection and dissolved its bankruptcy action because there was no legitimate plan that could make it healthy enough to survive. In effect, the court said it was in the best interests of all parties to end Mercy as a going concern, use its assets to pay off some small portion of its debts and move on.
It’s time to let that happen. Its demise would, in all likelihood, strengthen the coalition’s effort to get funding for new facilities because its closure would immediately exacerbate the shortage of nursing home beds. Those new facilities could provide jobs for Mercy workers, beds for Mercy’s patients. The real estate could be converted to truly productive use, taxes could be paid and the sad, sad chapter of Mercy’s history that started when Anthony Salerno bought the facility could come to an end.
