State To Lose Another Hospital

WALTHAM — The Board of Trustees at Waltham Hospital voted late last month to close the 117-year-old facility, the latest casualty in a string of hospital closings over the past decade.

The vote initiated the 90-day process during which a public hearing must be held and the Department of Public Health must render a decision on the closure plan.

Some facilities on the hospital site, including the Cancer Care Center and the medical office building, will remain. However, the emergency department and the hospital’s 163 beds will cease to exist on or about July 29.

The Mass. Hospital Assoc. (MHA) estimates that the state has lost approximately one third of its hospital beds to closure over the past decade.