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Hacienda to close children's hospital in Mesa

MESA, Ariz. (FOX 10) -- Officials with the embattled Hacienda HealthCare say they will close a children's hospital in Mesa.

Officials say the 24-bed hospital, which opened in 2015, has four patients right now. The hospital will remain open until a new owner/operator can be found, or the last patient is ready to leave the hospital.

The hospital provides non-emergency, non-surgical care to medically fragile children who are ready to leave a surgical or intensive-care hospital environment, but are not ready to return home.

42 hospital workers will be offered positions in Hacienda's other facilities, and Hacienda's CEO, Perry Petrilli, says layoffs are unlikely.

The decision to close the hospital appears to be cost-related, with Petrilli saying that Hacienda has taken on enormous and unprecedented costs, from security measures to legal costs, and "something had to give".

Hacienda HealthCare has been at the center of numerous controversies in recent months. In December 2018, a baby was born to an incapacitated patient at the facility. A former nurse has been arrested as a result. This year, maggots were discovered under another patient's bandages, and the facility has lost its federal funding as of July 3.