Patients and former employees alike showed up to the Pinnacle Regional Hospital in Boonville Thursday, a day after its abrupt closure.
Most doors to the hospital were locked, but the emergency room entrance was open for patients to collect medical records.
There were also representatives from Bothwell Regional Health Center in Sedalia, looking to recruit former Pinnacle employees. Lisa Irwin, director of human resources for Bothwell, said they had spoken with some 20 former employees, and had already hired one.
In addition to patients collecting medical records, other patients showed up unaware the hospital was closed.
Thomas Talent drove up from Sedalia for an appointment, only to find out about the closure. "They told me just to hang tight, that they had something in the works about opening up somewhere else or here," Talent said.
State health regulators recently cited the hospital for its sterile processing procedures and forced it to stop performing surgery.
In a statement announcing the closing, the hospital said complying with regulators’ demands would be too much of an economic hardship.
The privately owned hospital, which has a sister facility in Overland Park, Kansas, has been sued by vendors for unpaid bills and by the state for unpaid employment taxes.
Then on Wednesday, Pinnacle’s parent company was sued by employees of both hospitals for allegedly failing to pay their health insurance premiums. A spokeswoman for Pinnacle declined to comment on the lawsuit.
