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A double punch of Oregon hospital facility closures drew condemnation Thursday from the Oregon Nurses Association, which cast the developments as “a devastating loss of critical healthcare access for Oregonians” that will strain an already overburdened health system and force patients to travel farther to seek care.
On Monday came the news that 73-bed Vibra Specialty Hospital of Portland would shutter, leaving Oregon without a long term acute care hospital, a facility that generally cares for complex patients after they have been stabilized and discharged from a traditional hospital.
Then on Wednesday came news from down the I-5 corridor. Asante Ashland Community Hospital, a historic 49-bed inpatient facility, said it would next year eliminate inpatient services and a birthing center as it diminishes into a satellite campus of a larger hospital 11 miles up the freeway.
Under the plan, the hospital would retain its emergency department and outpatient operations. “We want to lean into what services at this facility the community is accessing, which is emergency services in the ED, outpatient surgeries and imaging,” Medford-based Asante said in one webpage, emphasizing that birth rates at the hospital have declined.
Echoing the rationales offered by Vibra leadership Monday, the Asante CEO said the decision was a response to a worsening financial and regulatory landscape for Oregon hospitals.
“Bold, difficult decisions are needed to combat the headwinds,” Tom Gessel, President and CEO of Asante, said in a statement. “Legislation implemented in Salem has put hospitals in an untenable situation. This will only worsen with the future reductions to Medicaid funding. For smaller communities like ours, consolidating duplicative services are inevitable—especially those in such close proximity.”
The Asante System’s claims of money issues have, however, raised questions.
In 2023 and 2024—the most recent two fiscal years for which audited financial statements are available—the health system reported a collective overall profit of more than $240 million.
Meanwhile, financial data from the Oregon Health Authority says Asante Ashland Community Hospital itself made millions of dollars in 2024 and continued doing so through the first half of 2025, with operating margins outpacing most hospitals in the state.
As The Lund Report earlier noted, Asante, in apparent contradiction to that information, is now in external communications asserting that its finances have gone south. A Wednesday news release from the health system included a statement from the CEO saying that “this past year, Ashland Community Hospital lost millions of dollars.” A separate FAQ on Asante’s website said the “facility is on pace to lose $7.3 million.”
An Asante spokesperson did not respond by deadline to a question from WW about the discrepancy between the information Asante is issuing and state data.
The state says its data comes from information self-reported by hospitals.
That wrinkle notwithstanding, the ONA frames the retreats, just the latest in a wave of Oregon heath care facility closures in recent months, as part of a broader crisis. The crisis, it says, is fueled by healthcare funding cuts under the Trump administration and the “increasing corporatization of healthcare, which prioritizes profit over patients and community needs.”
