Use this version to print Shortly before Christmas Michigan's largest health care provider, Mercy Health Services, announced the closure of Mercy Hospital, located in the heart of Detroit's impoverished east side. Approximately 1,300 jobs will be eliminated. Mercy, a building surrounded by poverty and blight, opened in 1983, making it one of the newest hospitals in the state. The closure of the hospital will have a devastating effect on the poor in Detroit.
Mercy is the third hospital in Detroit to close within the past two years.
Eighty percent of Mercy's patients rely on Medicare, Medicaid or other government-sponsored programs for health care. The hospital has stated that the cuts in these programs to Detroit residents created a financial pressure that was too difficult to withstand. Hospital spokesmen have said the plan is to phase out departments in stages, with final closure to take place by March 1. The Detroit hospital is the only facility Mercy has proposed to close. The crisis was precipitated by the massive cuts in medical programs for the poor by the state Medicaid and federal Medicare programs.