SHARON (TNS) — The emergency room at Sharon Regional Medical Center was already closed by Wednesday morning, even as the Pennsylvania Department of Health approved plans to shut down the hospital and move patients elsewhere.

Desperate efforts to try to resuscitate the 80-bed facility continue, but a monthslong campaign appeared to be almost out of options. The hospital is slated to close Jan. 6 as part of the reorganization of for-profit Steward Health Care System, Sharon Regional’s bankrupt corporate parent based in Texas.

Almost 850 staffers — 699 employees plus another 149 professional staff members — will lose their jobs, according to filings with the state, and Sharon Regional’s 24-hour cardiac catheterization lab, which provides lifesaving procedures that clear clogged heart vessels, will also close, said Debbie Yeager, 65, director of the cath lab and a registered nurse.

Doctors and nurses at the hospital on Wednesday in particular flagged their concerns about leaving Mercer County without lifesaving care needed in treating the most serious heart attacks.

“If you don’t open it quickly, that heart muscle dies,” said Yeager, who has worked at the hospital for 45 years. “Once heart muscle is dead, we can’t fix it.”

“Where are patients going to go?” she asked. “Our hospital is the only hospital in Mercer County that can treat a heart attack.”

Sharon Regional performs about 1,000 heart catheterizations annually, including ones that save the lives of the most serious heart attack victims, said hospital chief medical officer Nick B. Abbott.

“Our cardiac program is the gem of the community,” said Abbott, 35.

The closest hospital offering cardiac heart angioplasty is UPMC Jamison Hospital in Lawrence County, about 30 minutes away. Research has shown that mechanical clearing of cardiac vessel clots, which cause heart attacks by choking off blood flow, is most effective in saving lives and that “time is tissue” in sparing heart muscle.

“What do you think this will do to the community,” Sharon Regional vascular surgeon John J. Ambrosino, 74, said. “This is going to affect patient lives. It’s all going to go away. It’s a sad day.”

A candlelight vigil was planned Wednesday evening at the hospital as a show of support.

The state attorney general is scheduled to be at a hearing in Mercer County Court of Common Pleas on Jan. 3 in an 11th-hour bid to keep the hospital open.

But even if the state’s challenge succeeds in reverting hospital real estate ownership to the original owner, health care executives say the chances of keeping Sharon Regional open after January are small.

Manuel Bonder, spokesman for Gov. Josh Shapiro, on Wednesday said the administration continues to be closely involved with efforts to save the facility.

“The Shapiro administration is working closely with the Office of Attorney General and health care stakeholders to find a potential buyer and keep Sharon Regional Medical Center open,” he said in a prepared statement.

Sharon Regional, 70 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, is the fifth-largest employer in Mercer County, a one-time home of steel and other heavy industries that has a declining population of about 108,000.

Birmingham, Ala.-based Medical Properties Trust Inc. purchased Sharon Regional’s real estate. The Pennsylvania attorney general is making the case that violated a condition of the hospital sale in 2014 requiring a $75 million investment in the facility over five years.

The investment was never made, according to the state.

If the court challenge is successful, ownership of the real estate would revert to Hermitage-based nonprofit Buhl Regional Health Foundation, the original nonprofit owners of the 125-year-old hospital.

Meadville Medical Center, 18 miles away in Crawford County, had sought to acquire Sharon Regional — providing that $30 million in operating capital could be raised from Buhl and other sources, Sharon Regional President Bob Rogalski said. The deal collapsed last week when it became clear they couldn’t reach that goal.

Meadville had discussed restoring cancer care at Sharon Regional along with gynecologic services if the deal went through.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Buhl officials urged “community partners” to continue trying to find ways to complete the sale.

“The board is truly concerned about the horrible effects a hospital closure could have on a community,” Buhl Regional Health Foundation Chair Angela Palumbo wrote.

“We praise the hospital employees who have withstood enormous challenges for months, if not years, caused by questionable management practices of the hospital’s out of state, for-profit owners who are now mired in a bankruptcy that is draining the local facility of badly needed funds.”

In a “generous alternative” to Sharon Regional’s request for funds, Buhl said it offered a low- or no-interest loan of $11 million to transfer hospital real estate ownership to Meadville Medical Center from Medical Properties Trust, an amount matched by over $20 million offered by other community partners.

Despite the standstill in talks, heart catheterization lab nurse Sara Dietrich, 33, said she was trying to stay positive in a difficult situation.

“There’s still hope,” said Dietrich. “There’s still hope.”