Heritage Valley Health System's Kennedy Hospital permanently closing
Heritage Valley Health System's Kennedy Hospital is closing its doors for good on Monday.
The hospital's finances haven't been in good shape for a while, and care will come to a close at the Kennedy Township hospital, leaving patients looking for other places to go.
It was just two years ago that the hospital's Intensive Care Unit was closed down, along with cutting its number of beds from 120 to 77. Things continued to get more dire after that.
The health care system bought Kennedy Hospital in 2019, and Heritage Valley is one of only two remaining independent health care systems in the Pittsburgh region.
"It's been part of the community," Justin Sheldon of McKees Rocks said.
"It's kind of a shame," Loreal Cryder of McKees Rocks said.
After Monday, emergency room care, inpatient behavioral health, and outpatient surgery services will end at Kennedy. Diagnostic imaging and lung rehabilitation services will also end, and those services will be moving to Heritage Valley's two other hospitals in Beaver and Sewickley.
"People are going to pass away if that does happen," Cryder said.
Some other services, like cardiac rehabilitation, will be moving to a building that the system operates in nearby Robinson Township.
"There's a lot of elderly people in this area," Cryder said. "It'll be harder for them to actually get to a hospital because a lot of them don't drive."
At the hospital site in Kennedy Township, there will be a medical office building next to the facility along Heckel Road that remains open and will operate a walk-in clinic, a blood draw center, doctors' offices, and outpatient physical rehabilitation.
"As long as the medical building's there and my doctor is there, that's fine to me," Maryanne Gombkoto of Kennedy Township said.
Heritage Valley says that staff members working at Kennedy Hospital will be offered other jobs in the system, and those who choose to leave will be offered severance packages.
"You're taking away something that people need regardless of whether or not you're getting a huge return on that," Cryder said.
