Cooper Green Hospital
Cooper Green Mercy Hospital (formerly Mercy Hospital, Cooper Green Hospital) was a 319-bed inpatient general care hospital which was built by Jefferson County and operated by Jefferson County Health Services through a dedicated indigent care fund. It was located on the former Block 182 and Block 183 at 1515 6th Avenue South, adjacent to UAB Hospital in the Medical District of Birmingham's Five Points South neighborhood.
Funding for indigent care was established by the Alabama legislature in 1965, using revenues collected from county sales and liquor taxes. As a county hospital, health-care services were provided to all Jefferson County residents, with fees based on family size and income.
The facility first opened on October 1, 1972, and was renamed for former Birmingham mayor and Jefferson County Commissioner Cooper Green in 1975. A publicly accessible parking deck was built adjacent to the medical center in 1977.
In addition to employing its own staff, including the Jefferson Clinic physicians practice, Cooper Green coordinated with UAB Hospital to serve as a training site for medical residents and to provide patients with diagnostic tests, trauma care, and other procedures beyond its own capabilities.
In 1988 Cooper Green Hospital began offering end-of-life services under the "Balm of Gilead" program. Other special programs housed at Cooper Green Mercy included St George's Clinic, an outpatient care clinic for HIV infected clients, an Adult Sickle Cell Clinic, and a Women's Health Center. Cooper Green Mercy also operated the Jefferson Metrocare Health Center in Forestdale and the South Town Clinic in the South Town Housing Community.
Antionette Epps was named chief operating officer in 1993. Max Michael served as administrator until 2000. He resigned after his recommendation that the facility stop providing hospital services and serve entirely as an outpatient clinic was rejected by Commissioner Jeff Germany.
Sandral Hullett was hired as interim director in 2001. By the mid 2000s, fewer than half of the hospital's 319 licensed beds were staffed, and it served an average of 60 inpatients per day. Its emergency room handled as many as 35,000 patients per year.
In February 2004 the hospital was placed under the aegis of the Jefferson Metropolitan Health Care Authority, created by Jefferson County Commission president Larry Langford to allow for more flexible management and increased Medicaid claims. From October 2005 to March 2008 the hospital underwent a $28 million program of extensive renovations and modernization of systems, focusing on patient care rooms and public areas of the hospital. Brasfield & Gorrie was general contractor for the project. That authority became inactive in 2007, and management reverted to the previous health system.
In May 2009 then Birmingham mayor Larry Langford suggested that the City of Birmingham take over operation of the hospital, predicting that the county would try to shut it down amid cost-cutting measures in the face of its debt crisis.
In June 2010, with the Commission proposing to sell the Jefferson Rehabilitation and Health Center, several candidates in the 2010 election indicated that privatizing Cooper Green could be necessary. In 2011 Commissioner of Finance Jimmie Stephens recommended that the hospital be prevented from drawing from the county's general fund to meet month-to-month expenses.
In 2011 the county received a financial report suggesting that the hospital would need an additional $75 million over five years to cover its operating deficit and address capital needs. That led the County to create a separate Jefferson Health System authority shortly before it declared bankruptcy. Hullet was laid off along with 210 employees in the cost-cutting plan implemented in 2012.
In March 2012, the hospital reported $14 million in unpaid invoices due. In August a committee of the County Commission voted to end inpatient care at Cooper Green Mercy Hospital. The City of Birmingham filed a lawsuit attempting to force the county to keep the hospital open. The full commission voted on August 28 to close the unit at the end of the year. Just before Christmas, 210 employees, including medical clerks, staff nurses, patient care technicians and other workers, received notice that they would be laid off.
Effective January 1, 2013 the former hospital facility began to operate as a primary and urgent care clinic under the name Cooper Green Mercy Health Services. Initially, the clinic continued to provide urgent care services using many of the same emergency physicians, with the main difference being that residents training for emergency care could no longer be trained there. In May 2014 Jefferson County reached an agreement with four area hospitals to provide care to former Cooper Green inpatients.
A new $120 million, 207,000 square-foot Cooper Green Clinic opened on the site of the former Cooper Green Hospital parking deck in late 2024. The former Cooper Green Hospital was demolished shortly afterward.
References
- Velasco, Anna (July 15, 2007) "Renovation transforming look of county hospital." The Birmingham News
- Bryant, Joseph (May 19, 2009) "Mayor Larry Langford: Birmingham should consider operating Cooper Green Mercy Hospital." The Birmingham News
- Wright, Barnett (June 5, 2010) "Fate of Cooper Green hospital in hands of future Jefferson County Commission." The Birmingham News
- Leech, Marie (June 12, 2011) "Jefferson County takes hard look at Cooper Green Mercy Hospital funding." The Birmingham News
- Whitmire, Kyle (February 2, 2012) "Is Cooper Green Keeping Jeffco In The Red?" Weld for Birmingham
- Michaels, Ryan (September 28, 2022) "Timeline: Cooper Green Hospital Through the Years." The Birmingham Times