At Saint Anne's Hospital in a struggling mill town south of Boston, MA, an emergency room designed for 20,000 visits a year handles double that. Patients lie wrapped in blankets in doorless examination rooms a few steps from the ER's reception desk. Storage gets so tight in the surgery center that diagnostic equipment sits behind a line of red tape in a hallway. "It's so cramped," said CNO Carole Billington, who started working at Saint Anne's 26 years ago in her hometown of Fall River, where unemployment recently hit 17%. But Billington believes the situation at St. Anne's is improving — thanks to the deep pockets of Cerberus. The Wall Street buyout firm last fall acquired Caritas Christi, the hospital chain that included Saint Anne's and five other hospitals in the Boston area. Now Cerberus wants Miami-Dade's beleaguered Jackson Health System.
