“No Matter How Hard We Try with Good Conscience…” Hospitals Closing Down: A Third

The "limits of conscientious management" revealed by a third-generation hospital director in a downtown area highlights the reality that the current medical fee system and soaring prices are fundamentally destroying the traditional management model of community-based hospitals.This is not merely a decline in financial performance, but a crisis where the hospital's function as community infrastructure is on the verge of collapse.This sense of crisis is a pressing issue shared by many private hospital managers.

In the context of medical M&A and business succession, this news compels a redefinition of "exit strategies." While transferring ownership to external capital may be met with resistance by the third-generation, who have traditionally assumed succession within the family, a paradigm shift is necessary.A paradigm shift that prioritizes "preserving community healthcare" over "protecting the family business" is needed.Joining a larger medical group or corporation while the hospital still has financial strength can be the most realistic and ethical management decision to maintain staff employment and save the elderly who would otherwise lose their place.

In this era, the aesthetic of "struggling independently until the very end" can inadvertently trigger the collapse of community healthcare. Managers facing succession issues should reconsider M&A not as a way to "close" their hospital's history, but as an option to "revitalize" it within a new organization, and should consider it as an early option.