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Shriners ponder closing hospitals

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The Associated Press

Published: April 10, 2009

TAMPA - The Shriners Hospitals system, which has provided free care to children since before the Great Depression, is considering closing a quarter of its facilities as donations stagnate, costs increase and the charity's endowment shrivels.

The 60-bed Tampa hospital on the University of South Florida campus, which treats orthopedic disorders and creates prosthetic limbs and orthotic braces, is not on the list of hospitals being considered for closure at the organization's annual meeting in July.

However, 40 positions at the organization's international headquarters on Rocky Point Drive are slated to be eliminated.

The Shriners organization is siphoning $1 million a day from its endowment to balance the budget for 22 hospitals in the United States, Canada and Mexico, officials say. That fund has fallen to $5 billion from $8 billion in less than a year because of the sputtering stock market and a charitable giving slump. The fund has been declining since 2001, and the group has pondered closing facilities at least once before.

"Unless we do something, the clock is ticking, and within five to seven years we'll probably be out of the hospital business and not have any hospitals," Ralph Semb, chief executive officer of Shriners Hospitals for Children, told The Associated Press.

This year's operating budget for the hospital system is $856 million. The budget has risen by $100 million each of the past two years while donations remained static.

Last month, the Shiners' board of trustees voted to close four of the group's eight research centers and laid off about 40 people at its Tampa administrative office.

Shriners at the annual meeting will vote whether to close hospitals in Shreveport, La.; Erie, Pa.; Spokane, Wash.; Springfield, Mass., and Greenville, S.C. Semb said they were chosen mainly because of too many vacant beds.

The group also will consider whether to keep shuttered a hurricane-damaged facility in Galveston, Texas.

The Shriners Hospitals system opened in 1922 with a facility in Shreveport.. By the 1960s, the group had hospitals nationwide.

More than 1 million children have been treated at the hospitals, which were created by the fraternal organization of the same name. The care is free to all.

Tribune staff contributed to this report.

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