The fate of the University of Toledo Medical Center has been in the news lately. The core issue, ignored by Monday morning quarterbacks, is that the medical center is not solvent. But in the cacophony of voices and noises no one has proposed a viable solution to save the venerable institution.
Let us go back to the beginning. The Medical College of Ohio Hospital was purpose-built in the 1970s to provide university-level health care, conduct research, and train students and doctors. At fewer than 300 beds, it is a rather small hospital, but along with other affiliated hospitals — Mercy Health St. Vincent Medical Center and ProMedica Toledo Hospital — it fulfilled its academic mission and filled it commendably.
Free-standing academic hospitals the size of UTMC are a rarity in the United States. Most of them have either entered into a partnership with bigger hospitals to continue their three-pronged mission of patient care, teaching, and research, or they have gone out of business.
It was evident almost 10 years ago that UTMC could not survive for long as an independent academic hospital. During the previous UT administration efforts were made to seek a closer collaboration with ProMedica as well as Mercy Health Partners, but those conversations did not go anywhere. Even out-of-town health-care systems showed initial interest but backed out. The Cleveland Clinic was one of them.
It is unfortunate that affiliation agreement between ProMedica and University of Toledo left UTMC out of the talks. I take some responsibility for not making the affiliation agreement contingent upon the future of UTMC as at the time I served on the University of Toledo Board of Trustees.
It is not a secret that many people associated with ProMedica Toledo Hospital want UTMC to be boarded up. If that happens, ProMedica Toledo would have reaped the windfall by increasing its market share in northwest Ohio.
The affiliation between the University of Toledo College of Medicine and ProMedica stipulates that all academic departments would move from the medical college campus to ProMedica Toledo Hospital. So when the faculty is working and teaching at Toledo Hospital, where do you think their patients would end up? Not at UTMC.
At present most of the academic departments have been, as per affiliation agreement, shifted to ProMedica Toledo Hospital’s campus. In the case of surgery there was not enough work for the number of residents transferred to ProMedica Toledo Hospital. Some residents, I have learned, were sent to ProMedica affiliate Monroe Hospital in Monroe. How could a small community hospital — and the questions beg for an answer — transform into a teaching hospital overnight? That ain’t academic medicine.
I am surprised by the knee-jerk demand by some community leaders to save the hospital at all cost. Recently U.S Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) weighed in by asking Gov. Mike DeWine to halt any efforts to sell or lease the hospital. Miss Kaptur has also hinted that there may be some money available for UTMC. Even if it comes to fruition, a one-time infusion doesn’t fill the big deficit hole or stop the hemorrhage.
To pin the blame for UTMC’s nonsolvency on the current administration of UT is unfair. With due respect, I don’t agree with Miss Kaptur’s assertion that UTMC missed many opportunities in not availing itself of federal funds. Those funds would have been for research and would have gone to the Medical College and not to the hospital.
It bears repeating that the era of small hospitals in general and small academic medical centers in particular are long gone. In Toledo, except for St. Luke’s Hospital, no other community hospital stands independently. St. Luke’s has now been taken over by McLaren Health of Flint, Mich.
It will take many years for ProMedica Toledo Hospital to transform itself into an academic medical center. It will require hiring top-notch researchers to mesh clinical work with research. I know such transformations first hand. I witnessed the transformation of Maumee Valley Hospital into the Medical College of Ohio Hospital and then its transition into UTMC.
I would not call the affiliation between UT College of Medicine and ProMedica a failed enterprise as The Blade has asserted. It needs to be tweaked and brought up to date to take into account the ground realities.
Sometimes flawed agreements have to be revisited for the greater good of the community. 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.
Barring that, UT has no choice to either sell the hospital or lease it to an out-of-town party.
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.
First Published April 29, 2020, 4:00 a.m.
