From The Press of Atlantic City — William B. Kessler Memorial Hospital will remain open past its fundraising deadline of Jan. 16 as its administration tries to negotiate a partnership with another health care provider, the Atlantic County hospital announced Monday.

Kessler has abandoned its community loan drive and is paying the money back, interim Chief Executive Officer Jim Rossi said. Obtaining 
$5 million from private lenders would have guaranteed an additional $7 million in bank financing for the hospital’s revitalization effort, but less than 
$2 million was pledged.

“It’s just too small of a town, and the economy’s too crappy,” Rossi said.

More than 450 employees were told Monday the hospital’s future “is still very uncertain.” Rossi declined to establish a new deadline for Kessler’s survival. “We’re trying to come up with all the options within the next week or 10 days,” he said.

Rossi said the hospital has held talks or is scheduled to hold talks with several southern New Jersey hospitals, “more than two” of whom have actively showed interest in some form of relationship. Rossi said he did not want to use the word “merger,” but he confirmed that some of the conversations have been about combining operations.

AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center is one of the candidates, hospital spokeswoman Jennifer Tornetta said. “Kessler’s board approached us, and we are talking with them about solutions for Hammonton’s immediate and future health care needs,” she said.

Bridgeton-based South Jersey Healthcare’s administration declined to comment on whether it has had recent discussions with Kessler, spokesman Greg Potter said.

Kessler chose in August 2006 to negotiate an affiliation with South Jersey Healthcare, having also considered AtlantiCare and Camden-based Lourdes Health System. But the Bridgeton organization ended the talks within three weeks of that announcement.

Officials from Shore Memorial Hospital in Somers Point and Cooper University Hospital in Camden said they have had no recent talks with Kessler, and a spokeswoman for Virtua West Jersey Hospital in Berlin declined comment.

New Jersey’s government would have to clear any partnership, Rossi said. State agencies in December left the hospital out of a $44 million grant pool and rejected a request to let Kessler’s doctors join the loan effort with a $1.5 million contribution.

Rossi said in mid-November the hospital would need to close if it did not get $5 million in loans in the next two months.

“We have made improvements to the organization and we’re losing less money,” Rossi said when asked why he felt comfortable calling off the deadline for funding. Since replacing its billing contractor, he added, “we’re doing better on the billing and collections.”

There have been more patients, too: about 59 on Monday, after a year in which the hospital averaged 45 per day.

Kessler has missed recent payments on employees’ health insurance, Rossi said. Workers are still covered, but that could change in as soon as 30 days.

The hospital has survived day to day before.

In September 2007, it abruptly sold its halves of a hospice and home health care agency to co-owner AtlantiCare for $2.75 million, needing to pay health insurance and payroll taxes. Three months later, the hospital emerged from bankruptcy, having gotten $1.5 million in donations from the community.

Kessler’s assessed property value is about $14.5 million.