Rural Alabama community to buy its own hospital

The city of Greenville, south of Montgomery, is buying its local hospital from a Tennessee company. Tennessee based Quorum Health says it signed a definitive agreement to sell the seventy two bed L.V. Stabler Memorial Hospital to a city health care authority. No price was disclosed. The sale is supposed to be finished before year's end. The company, spun off by Community Health Systems, has heavy debt and is losing money. The Alabama Public Radio news team has spent the year investigating rural health in the state. One possible answer to rural hospitals closing, or operating in the red, is to “think small” with fewer beds. Click below to hear these stories again…