(The Hartford Courant) — Feb 12 — The University of Connecticut’s president and medical school dean have recommended that UConn update John Dempsey Hospital — at a cost of up to $342 million — and develop a “downtown” academic campus that would include collaboration with other area hospitals.
The recommendations, detailed in a Tuesday letter from university President Michael Hogan and Vice President for Health Affairs Cato Laurencin, have not been discussed by the UConn Health Center’s board of directors or the university’s board of trustees. Hogan on Thursday characterized the letter as “a partial set of talking points” and said it would be premature to comment on the contents or any other recommendations because the boards had not discussed it.
But the recommendations offer a hint at the direction university leaders may pursue in their latest attempt at a long-term solution for the Farmington hospital. UConn officials have said Dempsey, which faced multimillion-dollar deficits in recent years, is too small and outdated to be financially viable.
Two recent efforts to resolve the situation have failed. One, a 2007 proposal to build a 352-bed hospital to replace the 224-bed Dempsey, drew opposition from other area hospitals.
A proposal last year called for the health center to merge with Hartford Hospital and for the state to fund a new, $475 million hospital with about 250 beds. That plan, too, drew opposition from other hospitals, as well as from the unions representing health center workers and from Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who said it was too costly. University leaders scrapped the plan in November after determining it could not win enough support.
In their letter, Hogan and Laurencin wrote that they spent January considering options for moving ahead, following a “listening tour” members of the board of trustees conducted in December.
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