Note: this editorial appeared in the September 18, 2019 edition of the Toledo Blade.
Sometimes we end up paying for mistakes of our predecessors. The current status and future of the University of Toledo Medical Center is a case study in good intentions gone awry.
The good intention in this case was the construction of the teaching hospital on the campus of the Medical College of Ohio in the late 1970s. Since the inception of the medical college in 1964, Maumee Valley Hospital, located on Arlington and South Detroit avenues, had served as the teaching hospital along with St. Vincent and Toledo hospitals now under the aegis of Mercy Health and ProMedica, respectively.
The new hospital, a few hundred-bed state-of-the-art facility, served for many decades as the center of academic activities in Toledo. The students and residents got the bulk of their education and training at the Medical College Hospital. It was renamed UTMC after the merger of the Medical College of Ohio with the University of Toledo.
However, by 2010 it was becoming clear that UTMC, as a stand-alone facility, could not survive for long. The days of small independent academic hospitals were mostly a thing of the past, and mergers, acquisitions, and affiliations had become the buzzwords across the country. Some visionaries had realized early on that in a highly competitive atmosphere, mergers were the only way to cut cost and continue the mission.
Such mergers and acquisitions happened all across the nation.
Currently the United States only has a few free-standing small academic hospitals.
The dilemma for UTMC was that it had no viable options to join a bigger hospital. ProMedica was gunshy after its acquisition of St. Luke Hospital in 2010. That deal was challenged, and the Federal Trade Commission ruled that the merger was “illegal and anti competitive.”
However an opportunity arose when ProMedica, one of the two major health providers in our area, showed interest in having an affiliation with the University of Toledo College of Medicine. Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center was also interested but opted out during the initial negotiations.
Of interest for both ProMedica and Mercy Health was an opportunity to become academic medical centers. In the real world, academic medical centers, because of teaching, training, and research, are considered a few notches above other health-care providers irrespective of their size or reputation.
ProMedica committed a large sum of money for the affiliation. It offered hundreds of millions of dollars up front and then $50 million yearly for 50 years. A stipulation was that the Toledo Hospital would become the main academic hospital for the UT College of Medicine.
It was also mentioned that the medical college might move to the campus of Toledo Hospital in a purpose-built facility.
UTMC was not mentioned in the talks and conversations about the affiliation. After mulling it over for a few years UT decided that the hospital would cease to be a teaching hospital and would become a community hospital.
That was a short-sighted decision.
In private conversations some people who are not friends of UTMC have said that the hospital should be boarded up. It raises an important question: Why should a vibrant academic center with a sterling record be allowed to whither on the vine? Why couldn’t it remain a teaching hospital supplementing the student and resident teaching at ProMedica Toledo Hospital?
There is not enough clinical material at Toledo Hospital to satisfy the needs of medical students and residents in training. As such there is always the ever-present danger of jeopardizing the accreditation of some residency-training programs.
Sometimes ironclad agreements have to be revisited for the greater good of the community and the profession. Keeping UTMC as a teaching hospital with close affiliation with ProMedica Toledo Hospital is in the best interest of people of Toledo, University of Toledo, and the young men and women who have opted to come to Toledo for medical education and training.
UTMC is fiscally solvent and not in financial straits. It provides employment to 1,900 people and has, according to a recent economic impact analysis, an annual impact of $400 million in our region. It may not be able to survive in the long run, but with a partnership with a large system, it can not only survive, it can thrive, as well as retain its unique academic mission.
It is much easier to demolish and dismantle than to build something from scratch. My argument to retain UTMC as a teaching hospital is based on grounded realities, a continuum of excellence, and the continued need for such a facility in South Toledo. It is not based on nostalgic longing for a past that has long passed.
S. Amjad Hussain is an emeritus professor of surgery and humanities at the University of Toledo. His column appears every other week in The Blade. Contact him at: aghaji@bex.net