Sitting at the edge of the gently undulating landscape of the Flint Hills in east-central Kansas, the town of Hillsboro boasts a small hospital that has survived a remarkable roller coaster ride even as other rural hospitals stagger and fail.
Nine months ago, everything seemed to be coming apart at the 15-bed facility, Hillsboro Community Hospital, which traces its roots back more than a century.
“In the period from November 2018 through about the 10th of January of 2019, the hospital was essentially in abandoned condition,” says Brent King, who was appointed bankruptcy trustee after the hospital filed for Chapter 11 protection in March. “No bills were being paid, employees’ wages were often not being paid.”
(Read more: High Plains Public Radio)