Venice’s ShorePoint Hospital to close

VENICE, Fla. (WWSB) - A hospital that’s been a mainstay in downtown Venice for decades will be closing Sept. 22.

ShorePoint Health Venice on Monday announced plans to focus on outpatient services, where consumer demand is growing.

The multistory hospital on the north end of The Rialto will close effective Sept. 22. The fate of the building is still to be determined, said Danielle Gagliano, the hospital’s marketing manager.

HealthPark, Venice’s ambulatory campus, will continue operating and align with ShorePoint Port Charlotte. The ShorePoint Medical Group physician specialist network in Venice will continue seeing patients in their current practices.

The decision came just months after Sarasota Memorial Hospital opened a five-story, 365,000-square-foot hospital less than five miles away, SharePoint officials said.

SharePoint had opposed the approval of the SMH expansion, arguing state health planning data showed there was not a need for more inpatient beds in the area, Monday’s news release from SharePont said.

“The hospital has experienced a significant decline in the number of patients seeking inpatient care at the hospital,” the news release noted. “Additionally, rising labor costs and staffing challenges for all healthcare organizations following the COVID pandemic, inflationary pressure, and other dynamics make it difficult to operate successfully in today’s environment.”

Even with the hospital closing, Gagliano says the area should not see a gap in services. “There are really great options here,” she told ABC7. “We feel we’re leaving the community in good hands with in-patient options.”

“These and other factors are why the difficult but necessary decision was made to close the hospital and focus on outpatient services where patient demand continues to grow in Venice and the surrounding areas, and across the healthcare industry in general,” the news release said.

As part of the plan to wind down operations, Emergency Services will be discontinued Aug. 29 at 7 a.m. Other services will wind down in a phased approach.