CT hospital seeks yet another bailout from state

It's been a rough eight years for the University of Connecticut Health Center, which has asked state legislators for big financial help packages three times during that period. This past week, the system asked legislators for $22 million, with hospital officials contending that its 224-bed John Dempsey Hospital campus is too small to make a profit. John Dempsey is having financial problems, in part, because only 108 of its beds are available for acute care; the rest, which account for 96 percent of its deficit, offer maternity, psychiatric treatment and care for prison inmates. U-Conn. received $20 million in 2000 to catch up financially, and $10 million last year to help pay for better, more competitive fringe benefits for its employees. 

To learn more about the hospital's dilemma:
- read this Hartford Courant piece

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