DALLAS -- Revenues for Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas are back on track after falling 25% during an Ebola scare that claimed a patient's life and infected two nurses, according to a disclosure announcement from Texas Health Resources.
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The statement confirmed that revenues for the month of October were down about 25% or $12.2 million as the events were unfolding. The daily patient census was down about 22%.
Emergency room visits were down 49.3% in October as ambulances were diverted to other hospitals for two weeks. Through Dec. 15, emergency room visits were 3.7% lower and the daily census was down 2.3%.
Revenues have returned to "back to pre-event" levels, the statement said.
"The time period of epidemiologic surveillance for exposed community members and healthcare workers expired without incident on November 7, 2014, and no further cases have been evaluated or treated at Texas Health Dallas since that time," according to the disclosure.
The Dec. 19 statement was the second disclosure from the health care system related to the Ebola events. The first came Oct. 22 and contained similar figures about the financial impact at the time.
The hospital was criticized for its handling of the nation's first Ebola patient, Thomas Eric Duncan from Liberia.
After Duncan's initial visit to the Presbyterian emergency room, he was sent home with antibiotics, which are considered ineffectual against a virus. Two days later, he was brought back to the hospital by ambulance and diagnosed with Ebola. Duncan later died at Presbyterian, and two nurses who treated him were infected with the disease but later recovered.
"Texas Health Dallas was the first to face a situation that few hospitals in the country have been ready to manage and as such has suffered negative impacts to its financial performance," the disclosure statement read.
With about $1 billion of outstanding debt, Texas Health Resources carries ratings of Aa3 from Moody's Investors Service and AA from Standard & Poor's. Neither agency has downgraded THR, though Moody's had the system on its watch list after intense news coverage of the Duncan case.
