Within a week, two Oregon hospitals have said that they are planning to end inpatient services at their facilities.<\/p>\n
Vibra Specialty Hospital in Portland has announced that it will be closing February 1, 2026. The hospital sent notification<\/a> to Oregon\u2019s state government Monday that it will be shutting down and dismissing the facility\u2019s 310 employees.<\/p>\n \u201cVibra Specialty Hospital of Portland will be closing the hospital and conducting a permanent reduction in force due to ongoing financial challenges that have made it unsustainable to continue operations,\u201d the hospital said in the letter.<\/p>\n The critical care hospital provides services for patients who require longer stays for recovery. The hospital offers respiratory, cardiac, neurological, infectious disease, and traumatic injury programs. The facility has 73 beds, according to the American Hospital Directory.<\/p>\n Days after the Vibra announcement, Ashland Community Hospital, based in southern Oregon, said it will be closing its inpatient services and obstetric services by next spring. The nonprofit Asante health system, which operates the hospital, made the announcement<\/a> Wednesday. The hospital had operated 49 inpatient beds.<\/p>\n Asante said the Ashland Community Hospital will continue to operate its emergency department around the clock. The hospital will provide other outpatient services, including surgical and imaging services, the system said. The hospital is transitioning to a satellite campus of Rogue Regional Medical Center.<\/p>\n Oregon landscape \u2018is worsening\u2019<\/p>\n Tom Gessel, president and CEO of Asante, said in a news release that mounting financial losses at Ashland Community Hospital drove the changes. The system said the hospital is on pace to lose $7.3 million this year.<\/p>\n \u201cThe financial and regulatory landscape for Oregon hospitals is worsening,\u201d Gessel said in the statement.<\/p>\n \u201cThis past year, Ashland Community Hospital lost millions of dollars,\u201d he said. \u201cOperating the hospital with inpatient and obstetrics services is no longer viable, and duplicating underutilized services with Rogue Regional just 11 miles away is not the best use of limited health care resources in the valley.\u201d<\/p>\n Gessel pointed to state regulations and impending cuts in support from Medicaid<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cLegislation implemented in Salem has put hospitals in an untenable situation. This will only worsen with the future reductions to Medicaid funding,\u201d Gessel said in the statement.<\/p>\n Staff at Ashland workout outside of the emergency department will be given the chance to hold similar positions at Asante\u2019s other hospitals.<\/p>\n Asante said it has seen increased usage of Ashland\u2019s emergency department, while inpatient volumes have declined.<\/p>\n \u2018Cascade of closures\u2019<\/p>\n The Hospital Association of Oregon decried the loss of inpatient services at two Oregon hospitals, and the group said that other hospitals have been reducing services due to worsening financial conditions.<\/p>\n \u201cThis should be a wake-up call for our state leaders,\u201d the association said in a post<\/a> on LinkedIn. \u201cWithout action to better fund and support hospitals that provide vital health services, we will continue to see a cascade of closures. Oregon leaders must ask themselves what the state is willing to do differently to prevent the health care system from further collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n Nearly half of Oregon\u2019s hospitals (45%) lost money last year, and 26% barely broke even, according to a report<\/a> released in May by the Hospital Association of Oregon.<\/p>\n Becky Hultberg<\/a>, president and CEO of the Hospital Association of Oregon, told Chief Healthcare Executive\u00ae in a May 2025 interview<\/a> that Oregon\u2019s hospitals are facing serious financial hardships. And she says hospitals in Oregon have been struggling for years.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’re very concerned about the financial condition of Oregon hospitals, particularly because this is not just an isolated year of bad performance,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is a year of challenging financial performance that was preceded by three or four years of the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Hultberg acknowledged that many hospitals across the country are facing financial headwinds, but Oregon\u2019s health systems appear to be faring worse.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we’re seeing now that is really concerning is that the performance of Oregon hospitals have diverged from the performance of hospitals nationally,\u201d Hultberg said in May. \u201cSo something is going on here in Oregon that is unique, and that is pushing hospitals to the brink.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThings aren’t great anywhere, but they’re particularly bad here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Within a week, two Oregon hospitals have said that they are planning to end inpatient services at their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-169876","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}