San Diego

While the owner of loss-plagued San Diego Physicians & Surgeons Hospital continues to seek a buyer for the hospital, the planned closure today of its emergency room will be postponed for at least one month, it was announced Thursday.

The decision to postpone the closing to July 31 results from ongoing negotiations in National Medical Enterprise’s (NME) efforts to sell the 187-bed Southeast San Diego hospital, according to Donald Thayer, vice president of development for NME’s Hospital Group.

NME has operated Physicians & Surgeons since 1982 and has lost about $20 million on the hospital. Most of that is attributable to the hospital’s emergency room, which is the impoverished area’s only acute-care emergency facility.

Earlier this year, Nationwide Medical Systems of Perris, Calif., had agreed to buy the hospital for $6.5 million, but that deal fell through a month ago over contractual problems, NME spokesman Mary Stancil said. Since then, NME has been negotiating with several other possible buyers, Stancil said.