Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Bennett yesterday cleared the way for Alabama's bankrupt Jefferson County to shut down in-patient services at a government hospital for poor people that loses $10 million a year, Reuters reported yesterday. Jefferson County, which filed a $4.23 billion bankruptcy nearly a year ago, says that it can no longer afford to cover the losses for a 319-bed, in-patient operation that serves only a few dozen people on an average day. But Birmingham, Alabama's biggest city and the Jefferson County seat, had asked Judge Bennett to keep the city-based Cooper Green Mercy Hospital in full operation. The county proposes to replace Cooper Green's emergency room with an urgent care facility and to provide indigent care through outpatient clinics. Patients needing hospitalization would be sent to other hospitals, which would bill the county. Judge Bennett, in rejecting Birmingham's request, said state law did not require Jefferson County to run a hospital, though it was obliged to pay for the medical care of the poor.
