St. Michael’s hospital does get more than its fair share of charity cases. As the hospital closest to the hood, poverty is rampant near St. Mike’s. The uninsured flock to their emergency room to get basic healthcare, knowing they cannot be turned away. This has caused a fiscal crisis at the hospital and now they’re giving up, saying they’ll be closing their doors.

Other hospitals build as far away from the central city as possible, knowing that if they are the closest to the central city that they will have to bear the high costs of uninsured patients.

So now that St. Michael’s is closing its doors, more pressure will be put on St. Joseph’s hospital to bear the responsibility for the uninsured. Is it just a matter of time before St. Joseph’s starts to feel the pain.

Northwest Hospital closed just a few years ago.

These hospital closings signal a much larger problem in our healthcare system. When will politicians figure out that you can’t just pump more money into insurance companies and hospitals and expect the problem to fix itself?

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As a side issue, St. Michael’s was the first hospital in the nation to perform a kidney removal operation.