In the Fall of 2025, the CEO of Columbia Memorial Hospital in Hudson, NY, announced that our parent company, Albany Medical Center is seeking to downsize CMH to a critical access hospital. 

The key points to AMC’s plan is the following- 
 1. Downsize 192 beds to 25 in patient medical beds and 6 ICU beds to 2 ICU. 
 2. Invest $25 million in a new outpatient surgery and specialty center at Greene Medical Arts in Catskill. Construction begins in November and will create 32 new local jobs. AMC has NOT announced what will happen if surgery patients have complications and need to be admitted as CMH will only have 25 medical beds.
 3. Doubling CMH’s psych capacity to at least 35 beds with 15 additional positions.
 4. AMC is claiming no one will be laid off.  
 5. AMC is claiming that under current reimbursement rules, CMH receives only 50 to 70 percent of the cost of care for 89 percent of patients, who are covered by government insurance. As a critical access hospital, CMH would receive up to 101 percent of the cost of care. 
 6. CMH will complete a Health Equity Impact Assessment, including public town halls, staff meetings, and community surveys. The first public town hall was October 29th, 2025. There was also a virtual town-hall and an employee-only town hall that was NOT well-advertised or attended. CMH leadership submitted their Health Equity Impact Assessment in December 2025.  You can look it up here and search for “Columbia Memorial”. It is the “Decertify 167 Beds to Pursue Critical Access Designation”. https://apps.health.ny.gov/facilities/cons/nysecon/projectInformation

Here are our concerns- 

 1. The CEO of CMH, Dorothy Urschel made $574,241 in 2024 after she received over a $100,000 raise from the previous year. AMC is claiming that they have to downsize CMH due to CMH being in the deficit. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/473869194
 2. AMC cited how Ellenville Regional Hospital was successfully turned into a critical access hospital. An estimated population within 10 miles of CMH(46,159) is almost double the estimated population within 20 miles of Ellenville Hospital(27,243). Greene County has a 47,931 population. Columbia County has a 61,570 population. CMH provides care to almost 110,000 people between these two counties. We are NOT the same. 
 3. 30-40% of 1199 Union members are per diem. According to the 1199 contract, per diem employees are tiers which require them to work a certain amount of shifts a month. CMH CEO, Dorothy Urschel, said at the town hall meeting on October 29th, 2025 that “per diem is not a scheduled position”. Will 400 employees no longer have a job once CMH is downsized? 
 4. CMH currently employs an estimated 1,300. The average critical access hospital employs less than 400. The math isn’t adding up. Will CMH employees be given positions that are within the local area, their speciality, or their previous shift? 
 5. If CMH is made a critical access hospital with only 25 medical in-patient beds and 2 ICU beds, this will result in either an overflow of boarder patients and ICU patients in the ER or EMS will be forced to bring any patients who might be admitted straight to AMC. This will result in more strain on AMC ED that already has one of the worst wait times in the state. And this will result in more stress on EMS as they have to travel farther. The distance between AMC and CMH is an estimated 37 miles. 
 6. AMC has cited that 89% of our population is on government insurance. Will 89% of our patients have the financial means to travel to AMC in order to seek out speciality care? CMH already has lost urology, maternity, OB, and infectious disease.  MRI and in-patient dialysis being unavailable have required patients to be transferred. 
 7. EMS is already overwhelmed with transports. High medical acuity patients might be stuck in the CMH Emergency Departments waiting for transport, a delay that can be costly to their health outcomes.
 8. The stress on CMH Emergency Department by boarder patients and ICU patients waiting for transport might result in higher wait times, unsafe patient to nurse ratios, and poor health outcomes for patients.
 9. For March and April 2026, CMH medical beds was consistently in the 60’s. And yet, AMC is claiming that the average census is 40-50 patients. 
 10. A Medicare-Dependent Hospital rather than a Critical Access hospital is also an option to keep the lights on at CMH. A Medicare-Dependent hospital would allow up to 100 medical beds and up to 75% reimbursement. AMC has declined discussions with the 1199 union about this option. 
 11. AMC is one of the largest health care employers within the tristate area with a 3.28 billion revenue in 2024 and 4 hospitals in their network. AMC could cover the deficit of our 89% of patients on government health insurance with the more profitable services within the AMC network. Since CMH came under AMC’s leadership in 2016, CMH has lost specialities and the building is not being well-maintained. CMH needs investment in order to produce revenue. 
 12. Many of patients’ family members will NOT be able to visit patients if they have to be transferred to AMC for hospital admission simply because it is an additional 30-45 miles. 
 13. Many patients only need to be hospitalized for an additional 24-72 hours. The strain of an ambulance transfer to AMC ED to wait for a bed to open might be an additional cost and stress on patients for a simple 24-72 hour hospital stay. 

We are urging for Albany Medical Center to not downsize Columbia Memorial Health to a critical access designation as we are the only hospital within Columbia and Greene County. We are urging them to invest in our community. Patients should matter more than profit. Follow the Save CMH Coalition on Instagram and Facebook. 

https://www.instagram.com/savecmhcoalition?utm_source=qr

https://www.facebook.com/share/1PLNGNkQif/?mibextid=wwXIfr