For a growing number of New York City residents, the trip to have an appendix taken out or get treatment for a broken leg is increasingly being measured in miles, rather than blocks.
Since 2000, 19 hospitals across the city have closed due to financial pressures. And closures no. 20 and 21 are underway.
Experts say the planned shutdowns of Interfaith Medical Center and Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn are more evidence that small and mid-sized hospitals are increasingly finding it hard to pay the bills, especially if they serve poorer neighborhoods.
And the political will to bail out struggling facilities has dried up.
That's due partly to thinking that in an era of outpatient care, hospital beds aren't as important as they once were.
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