WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) – North Star has submitted plans to the state, laying out what will happen if it doesn\u2019t get funding next week to keep going.<\/p>\n
Rob Bloom, the chief restructuring officer, told a bankruptcy court judge on Wednesday that \u201cvery drastic cost-cutting measures will need to be taken immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
If there are no financing options, he said North Star will require \u201cexpedited closures\u201d from the health department. <\/p>\n
Interim CEO Andrew Manzer told the bankruptcy court that those plans have already been submitted to the DOH. <\/p>\n
Judge Wendy Kinsella shared the sense of urgency, saying a Monday meeting between the state and North Star should be a top priority and warning that North Star is about to hit a brick wall.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear whether that Monday meeting would take place.<\/p>\n
NY\u2019s health commissioner weighs in<\/p>\n
New York\u2019s health commissioner says North Star Health Alliance is in charge of making decisions for its future, not the state health department. <\/p>\n
In an interview with 7 News, Dr. Jim McDonald describes the health department\u2019s role as advisory as North Star navigates bankruptcy proceedings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Department of Health doesn\u2019t have a role at this point in choosing what happens; this will be determined by the bankruptcy court, and to some extent how North Star puts its restructuring together,\u201d McDonald said.<\/p>\n
Status quo is not an option<\/p>\n
We got the sense from McDonald that North Star needs to come forward with a plan to stand on its own.<\/p>\n
\u201cNorth Star needs to decide what they can do and what they can do well and sustainable. North Star needs to help make that decision-making come together. If they are going to close services, they need the state\u2019s approval on that and that\u2019s where I come in again,\u201d McDonald said.<\/p>\n
When asked whether changes are coming, McDonald replied, \u201cI expect there will be changes because when you think about the old expression \u2014 if you keep doing the same thing and it\u2019s not working, stop doing the same thing. You\u2019re going to have to do different things here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Larger hospital system may offer path forward<\/p>\n
It\u2019s likely North Star will need to become part of a larger hospital system, a move that could cost the state tens of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n
McDonald said because rural health care is so important to the governor and the health department, there is money to help.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you find a partner, or larger system, that can help you, you can have a sustainable future and that\u2019s something North Star needs to consider because we have funding this year in the budget for that. The governor proposed $1 billion and $300 million operating. Obviously, we can\u2019t put all that into North Star, but if North Star wanted to submit an application, we would want to see what they had in mind,\u201d McDonald said.<\/p>\n
McDonald made it very clear that he and the state believe the hospitals in Carthage and Ogdensburg, the assisted living facility near West Carthage, and the network\u2019s approximately 1,600 employees are critical to the North Country, but it\u2019s up to North Star and its new leader, Andrew Manzer, to develop a plan for the future.<\/p>\n
And it looks like there\u2019s a week to get it done.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WWNY. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) – North Star has submitted plans to the state, laying out what will happen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[384,66709,4134,66707,9,24,55,54,66708,56],"class_list":["post-161771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-bankruptcy","tag-health-alliance","tag-health-commissioner","tag-jim-mcdonald","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-north-star","tag-ny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}