The first three months of the year have left St. Charles Health System with a $17.2 million operating loss, the hospital reported in an email to its employees. The cause is a confluence of events that have taken two years to brew, said Matt Swafford, St. Charles Health System chief financial officer. Since the start of the pandemic, St. Charles has operated at, or above, full capacity, at times paying wages that were three times higher than pre-pandemic rates and, until recently, delayed the return of the profitable private-pay surgeries that were put on hold to keep hospital beds and staff free for COVID-19 patients.
