Its windows are dark, the doors shut tight. The sign at Eighth and Jones streets has tape across it. Looking at the furnishings and equipment scattered about now, it is difficult to imagine that people once worked here, babies were born here and families waited in hope and grieved lost loved ones.

This month marks the third anniversary of the closing of River Valley Hospital. The county's only hospital closed its doors Jan 29, 2001, taking with it more than 400 jobs and leaving many unanswered questions: what happened to our hospital … and why? Will we ever know?

A good hospital

For Darlene Elliott, River Valley Hospital was both employer and health care provider. She worked at the hospital for three and a half years. In 2000, an accident at home led to a stay in intensive care.

"It was a good hospital," Elliott said. "I was treated well. River Valley provided great care. Even thought there was a good ole boy network (in hiring and operation) it was great service."

In Jan. 2001, Elliott officially learned she didn't have a job anymore at River Valley: Faced with financial problems, the hospital was closing its doors, ending a decades old tradition and leaving hundreds jobless.

"I was devastated," Elliott said. "If this is what a divorce is like, I don't ever want to go through a divorce. They took something from me."

What happened?

Throughout most of its history, the hospital had a reputation for excellent basic medical care accentuated by the warm family embrace of veteran doctors and employees who were neighbors to the patients for whom they cared.

"All five of my kids were born there," former board member Gary Tyo said. "My mother died there."

In the late 1980s and 1990s, the hospital expanded its services, adding outreach centers, a helicopter pad and new equipment in an effort to compete with some of the area's larger medical facilities. But by the late 1990s, rumors of the hospital's financial problems surfaced.

At the time, then-Chief Executive Officer Terry Vanderhoof said that recent layoffs of hospital staff were due to local plant closings and the balanced Budget Act of 1997, which cut federal Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements to health care providers.

"Things are tight but we're just trying to be prudent business people," Vanderhoof said at that time. "It's terrible for the people who lost jobs; it's traumatic for people changing jobs. We're all in this together and we've tried to minimize it as much as possible."

At first, hospital officials tried to quiet the rumors by reassuring the public that the hospital, while struggling to cope with a changing economy, would never close. Vanderhoof said at that time that he was pleased that the hospital had maintained employment for more than 400 people and would continue its work despite budget woes.

"Yes, we've made adjustments, but that's not because we're afraid of closing,"Vanderhoof said in August 2000.

Yet only five months later in January 2001, hospital officials announced that, indeed, the facility would close, after firing Vanderhoof the month before.

Recent attempts to contact Vanderhoof for his comments failed after repeated calls to his Scioto County residence were not returned.

At the time of its closing, local officials estimated that the hospital was in debt approximately $17 million. The hospital was placed in receivership Jan 31, 2001, just days after the last patient left.

The federal probe

In late January 2001, the Lawrence County Commission asked for a federal audit to determine why the hospital had amassed such debt. The county owned the hospital, but under state law it was operated by a board of trustees.

"There are several questions concerning the financial and legal aspects of the failure of this facility, which the commissioners feel need to be addressed," commissioners said in a letter requesting the investigation. "There are suspicions of welfare and Medicare fraud. The fact the hospital is apparently $17 to $18 million in debt leads to questions of gross mismanagement of hospital funds."

The receiver's report dated March 16, 2001, stated "the receiver has twice met with the United States Assistant Attorney General Doug Squires in reference to the hospital problems and in addition to that has met with federal government department agencies and their representatives and has also met with the FBI and federal investigators in reference to the hospital."

Court-appointed receiver Robert Payne said that the FBI came in requesting information and documents.

It is an investigation that apparently continues to this day. In August 2003, federal authorities met with former hospital board member Ron Davis.

"They asked how I could justify not making reductions in staff (during the apparent financial crisis)," Davis said. "They wanted to know about the financial problems, why it closed."

Davis said he thinks federal agents also met with former hospital human resources director Chuck O'Leary and former chief financial officer Sherri Davidson. O'Leary and Davidson both declined to comment.