Tampa hospital closing, laying off 143 workers

A Tampa hospital has announced plans to close, effective April 30. Kindred Hospital will shutter its location at 4555 S. Manhattan Ave. and lay off 143 workers as of the closure date, according to a notice filed with the state.

The Kindred Hospital Bay Area - Tampa is a 73-bed long-term acute care hospital. It is part of the Kindred Hospitals network, which is based in Louisville, Kentucky, and specializes in acute care for people who require an extended recovery period.

Workers, pharmacists, dietitians and respiratory therapists are some of the job titles impacted, according to a notice posted to Florida’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification site.

The nearly 150 employees are neither represented by a union nor are they eligible for transfer, reassignment or bumping rights, the notice says. However, a spokesperson for Kindred Hospitals says they may be offered other positions within the network.

"We intend to offer substantially all frontline employees in good standing job opportunities at other Kindred hospitals," Jeanie Rittenberry says on behalf of Scion Health, which is also known as Knight Health Holdings LLC and acts as the holding company for Kindred Hospitals. "For employees without available opportunities, we will provide financial and other transitional assistance."

Kindred Hospitals has two other area locations: Kindred Hospital Central Tampa, which is a 102-bed long-term acute care hospital at 4801 N. Howard Ave., and Kindred Hospital Bay Area St. Petersburg, a 95-bed hospital and acute rehabilitation unit at 3030 6th St. S.

On its website, Kindred Hospitals says it is "consolidating our Tampa/St. Pete area operations and permanently closing and ceasing all operations of Kindred Hospital - Bay Area - Tampa, on or before May 1."

Consolidating into two locations "will best support our continued delivery of high-quality long-term acute care for the communities we serve by enabling more robust investment in our facilities, creating a stronger staffing structure, amplifying innovation, and enhancing the patient and family experience," Rittenberry says in an email.

"Kindred’s priorities throughout this process have been to ensure the seamless delivery of care for patients and to support its employees," Rittenberry says. "At the time the location closes, all patients will either be discharged as part of their expected course of care or transferred to our St. Petersburg or Tampa Central locations in a highly coordinated manner."

This article was updated to include comment from a spokesperson for Scion Health, the holding company for Kindred Hospitals.