Saint Cabrini Hospital To Close Nov. 30

Saint Cabrini Hospital, which has struggled for nearly two years to find a buyer, will close on Nov. 30, hospital officials said today.

The announcement follows the failure just two weeks ago of a tentative agreement to sell the 74-year-old hospital to Swedish Hospital Medical Center.

Swedish officials had wanted to remodel the oldest part of the hospital, but were told by architects the repairs would cost more than $6 million.

``Closing the hospital was our last option. However, we were unable to arrange a sale to another health-care provider and therefore had no choice,'' said Sister Joan McGlinchey, provincial superior of the Missionary Sisters. Cabrini lost $1.3 million in 1988.

Other negotiations with ERA Care, which manages retirement facilities and health-related services, also failed.

Cabrini officials said Swedish will take over the hospital's alcohol-and-drug-dependency program, its eye center, its skilled-nursing unit and portions of its geriatric-care program.

Cabrini will take no patients after Nov. 1, and provisions will be made with other hospitals for surgeries scheduled after that.

The hospital was opened as the Columbus Sanatorium in 1916 by Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, the first American citizen to be named a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.