El Dorado Hospital will close in two weeks - months sooner than expected - so its owner, TMC HealthCare, can remake it into a nursing home and center for patients who need long-term care.
TMC HealthCare, which also owns Tucson Medical Center, said in May it would close El Dorado by the end of the year. But Friday the parent organization said El Dorado will close Aug. 18, to make it easier and safer to begin renovations.
The new El Dorado should be ready for patients by the first of next year, said TMC spokeswoman Julia Strange.
Hospital officials told El Dorado's nurses and other employees Friday they will be offered jobs at TMC that will pay as much as the jobs they have now. They also will be able to apply for new jobs at El Dorado when its new services open.
El Dorado administrator Martha Gerganoff, who began at the hospital as a critical care nurse in 1984, will move to TMC as its new administrator - a job that puts her second-in-command to CEO Frank Alvarez.
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About 500 El Dorado employees also will be affected by the change.
"We're doing our best to keep people ‘whole' during this transtion," Gerganoff said Friday. For example, the hospitals are trying to accommodate people who want to work certain shifts, and others who carpool and want to work at the same time on the same days, Gerganoff said.
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