In the News

The Holyoke Medical Center will be receiving an additional $8.7 million in federal funding, on top of its original allocation of $2.9 million distributed in early April, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal announced Saturday.

Neal and HMC President and CEO Spiros Hatiras held a joint press conference at the hospital Saturday morning announcing the revised allocation.

Hatiras said the hospital was treating fewer than 100 COVID-19 patients at the April 10 funding deadline. However, just two weeks later more than 120 COVID-19 patients were being treated, many of them from the Holyoke Soldiers Home.

Neal, who is the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he and Hatiras met with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex M. Azar II and his staff several times to argue that the funding formula was “a little bit rigid,” and unfairly cut the hospital’s “high impact” designation thus leaving it with approximately 20 percent of the funding it should have received.

The Baystate Medical Center in Springfield received $76.7 million from the CARES program, while the Mercy Medical Center in Springfield received $18.8 million and Northampton’s Cooley Dickinson was allocated $5.5 million.

“We have a good relationship with Secretary Azar,” Neal said. “I treated him with respect when he testified before the Ways and Means Committee, even though I disagreed with him. Because the Ways and Means Committee oversees HHS, they pay attention to our requests.”

The additional funding was allocated through the HHS Provider Relief Fund’s second round of high impact COVID-19 funding.

Hatiras said the extra funding will go a long way to bringing furloughed workers back to the hospital.

“With this money, we can cover our losses and be more comfortable bringing back people we furloughed,” he said. “One of the first things we did as a small institution without the backing of a larger system is we furloughed nearly 300 people. We have brought most back since then, but this money gives the comfort that we can bring these people back and have the funds to pay them.”

The medical center has been operating at a deficit since the April round of funding and much of that was spent on PPE or “personal protection equipment. "

“We have had no infected employee who required ICU level care, and heaven forbid, no deaths,” Hatiras said. “We have had almost no documented transmission from patient to an employee. We have had some employees who have tested positive but most of them were traced back to the community.”

Neal said the House version of the HEROS Act provides $175 billion in hospital relief funding. That bill passed the House in May and is awaiting Senate action.

“Two months and 11 days later,” Neal said. “They (the Senate) have had two months to pass this bill. It’s cruel to do this to people who need this money,” he said. “This is not about malfeasance, this is about trying to defeat the coronavirus. That’s the issue.”