KINGSTON – AS HealthAlliance Hospital in Kingston faces a budget shortfall going into 2024, Ulster County Executive Jen Metzger is asking Governor Kathy Hochul to intervene with financial assistance.
In a letter to the governor, Metzger said WMCHealth “has made clear their intention to cut services without the promised state support for the fifth year of the hospital’s five-year financial stabilization plan, negotiated between WMCHealth and the State Department of Health in 2019.”
The county executive said the list of services on the chopping block “are those that may be relatively unprofitable for the hospital but area of critical importance to the health and wellbeing of our communities – servicers including inpatient care and partial hospitalization for mental health, stroke intervention services, and labor and delivery.”
She said the county has already seen drastic cuts to WMCHealth to existing inpatient mental health and detox services in Kingston. “Any further cuts to hospital services in areas of such high need in Kingston and Ulster County would be contrary to the public good.”
Metzger told the governor that cuts to the partial hospitalization program for mental illness for residents in northern UIster would be devastating. Without the Kingston service, people would have to travel daily to MidHudson Regional Hospital in Poughkeepsie and would out of reach and possibly and possibly life-saving for those Kingston residents who rely on public transportation.
