Burdened by continuing financial losses and declining patient admissions, UPMC Braddock hospital will cease operations on Jan. 31, UPMC officials said this morning.

The shutdown will affect 652 employees at the hospital, including 70 residents of the Braddock zip code, but UPMC spokesman Paul Wood said most will be offered jobs at other UPMC facilities.

UPMC purchased the faltering Braddock Medical Center in 1996, and has invested about $30 million in the 277,000-square-foot facility since then, including a new $8 million facade that hasn't even had a ribbon cutting yet. In the past six years, though, UPMC has lost $27 million at the hospital, and only 51 of the 123 beds are now occupied on average.

"We were projecting the daily census would go down to just 44 beds in 2010," Mr. Wood said, and that, combined with a 21 percent decline in admissions over the past five years, was the driving force in the decision to close.

UPMC's analysis showed that in the six zip codes surrounding the hospital, four out of five patients have been going to other UPMC facilities, primarily UPMC Presbyterian, UPMC Shadyside, UPMC McKeesport and UPMC Mercy.

All of that, Mr. Wood said, led to the decision to cut the system's losses at the hospital. "It wasn't a pleasant or easy decision, but it was a necessary decision," he said.

Braddock Mayor John Fetterman said he learned about the closing late yesterday afternoon. He said he had indications from UPMC officials that the hospital might shut down a couple of weeks ago, "but I certainly didn't expect it this soon." He said UPMC officials "expressed their reluctance to close and leave, but they cited the financial realities about the losses the hospital has sustained."

Mr. Fetterman said UPMC had "certainly stuck it out as long as they could and they've been a good neighbor."

"I won't make UPMC out to be the villains in this situation," the mayor said. "If anyone is to go on trial in this situation it's the health care system as a whole, and in the current system, you're forced to pick winners and losers. It's my hope that this can serve as an example of what can happen and does happen in the poorest communities in America."

At a news confrence this afternoon, Mr. Fetterman and Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato said they will have an emergency meeting with UPMC executives on Monday morning.

Saying he found the proposal to cease operations at the hospital on Jan. 31, "disappointing and unacceptable," Mr. Onorato said that he and Mr. Fetterman, together with U.S. Rep Mike Doyle and state Sen. Sean Logan, will ask UPMC executives to take closure of the hospital "off the table."

That reality, Mr. Fetterman said, is a sobering acknowledgment by UPMC officials of the costs associated with providing health care in low-income communities like Braddock.

"Today, Braddock very much felt like we were on the short-straw end," Mr. Fetterman said.

But even as he acknowledged the fiscal reasons that might have compelled UPMC to announce plans to shut down the hospital, Mr. Onorato argued that the health system should not be in a position to unilaterally make a decision that will potentially affect not only Braddock, but all of the Mon Valley.

Because UPMC is a non-profit entity that also receives significant public tax dollars, he said, it essentially is a "quasi public entity," and because of that there should be "true public concern" about and input about UPMC's decisions.

In next week's meeting, Mr. Onorato said, the quartet of public officials will try to impose upon UPMC executives the repercussions of shutting down the hospital.

Beyond the lack of access to quality health care the hospital provided, it was also the anchor of the county's economic redevelopment plans in Braddock and its neighboring communities, Mr. Onorato said.

To that end, he cited the county's ongoing projects like the $50 million renovation of the Rankin Bridge; the $15 million development of a 64-unit apartment complex for senior citizens seated next to the hospital and the county's plans to market the old Carrie Furnace site for redevelopment.

All those projects, Mr. Onorato said, have a stake in the continued presence of UPMC in Braddock. What is more, the county, through its economic development plans, helped secure some $3 million from the state for the renovation of the building the houses the hospital.

UPMC officials have said they would return the state money, Mr. Onorato said.

UPMC remains committed to serving the health needs of Braddock area residents, Mr. Wood said, and will maintain many of the community outreach programs there, including the Steps to a Healthy Community project, Health for Life summer camp, the UPMC Braddock Dental Center, and various youth mentoring and senior housing initiatives

Dave Coplan, director of the Mon Valley Providers Council, an umbrella organization of 70 social services nonprofits in the region, said those reassurances are important.

"I'm not trying to discount the hospital side of this, but I do think it will be important for us to see what happens to some of the additional services. They've already made it abundantly clear to us that this does not diminish their commitment to the communities they serve."

Mr. Wood said UPMC will work with community leaders on the best way of disposing of the building. He said the health system also will continue working with the developer of the senior apartment complex.

UPMC also plans to work with the 60 physicians based in the hospital's vicinity to try to maintain and even expand basic health care services for residents, he said.

While not trying to minimize the pain for the community, Mr. Wood said that "we operated something that could well have been out of business back in 1996 for 13 years. And if you step back and look at the bigger context, UPMC employs 50,000 people in region, it rescued the area's last Catholic hospital and it has provided more than $500 million in charity care. It's very safe to say there's not another academic medical center anywhere in the United Stated that does more for its region."

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