By Chelsea Rice

Boston.com Staff

November 6, 2014 11:48 AM

The Boston Globe

Steward Health Care System announced today that it will be closing Quincy Medical Center by the end of the year. Steward plans to replace the financially struggling 196-bed hospital with an outpatient urgent care center.

While Quincy Medical Center earns top quality and safety ratings, competition from Boston-area medical centers, significant cuts to Medicare reimbursements, continued Medicaid underfunding, continued rate disparity, and precipitously declining inpatient volume have made QMC unsustainable, Dr. Mark Girard, president of Steward Hospitals, a for-profit company, said in a statement. On an average day, only one fifth of all beds are occupied and it has become abundantly clear that local residents no longer seek inpatient services from Quincy Medical Center.

Dr. Girard told The Boston Globe that there has been a 19 percent decline in Quincy Medical Centers emergency room visits since 2012 that has been progressively getting worse. The Boston Globe reported that this is the states largest hospital closure in a decade.

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The closure will affect 680 employees and specifically the jobs of 221 registered nurses at the hospital, according to David Schildmeier, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Nurses Association.

The MNA is committed to working with all the stakeholders to make sure the needs of the community and employees impacted by this decision are met, Schildmeier said in an interview. Its been a shock. Weve known they were in trouble for a while, but they informed us yesterday of the closure. With Radiuss closure and now this, its a lot for the community to absorb.

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Steward Health Care Plans to Close Quincy Medical Center by End of Year