HALSTEAD ? The Halstead Hospital has filed for bankruptcy just days after celebrating its 100th anniversary.

The hospital owes about $4.5 million, according to bankruptcy papers.

Among the hospitals debts are $300,000 to the Internal Revenue Service, $36,000 to the Kansas Department of Revenue and $26,600 to Westar Energy.

Hospital spokeswoman Carolyn Armendariz said business would continue as usual while administrators restructure the debt. The hospital recently received a $5 million loan, but she said she could not comment on what the hospital would use it for.

In a memo to employees Thursday, hospital board chairman Leslie Kitchenmaster said administrators intended to reorganize “with a minimal impact” on employees.

“We have achieved the impossible in the past 10 months,” he wrote. “We now have the reorganization and refinancing phase to finalize. Therefore we have chosen to do this with the protection of Chapter 11 (reorganization).”

Kitchenmaster’s company, Peak Management Corp., took over the hospital’s management in August 2001 after administrators gave employees notice that the hospital would close in 60 days. Kitchenmaster signed a six-month contract with an option to buy.

Kitchenmaster announced in November that he was buying the hospital and Hertzler Clinic and providing an undisclosed amount of cash.

At that time, Kitchenmaster described his management company as one that buys companies in trouble and bails them out. It is the parent company for publishing, television, real estate, oil and gas companies. The hospital is Kitchenmaster’s only medical enterprise.

Armendariz said the 126-bed hospital continued to recruit physicians and had a daily patient census of about 25, which hospital officials consider to be a good number.

Employment has remained steady at about 240.

“We’re recruiting like crazy,” she said. “We’re really concentrating on the basics of taking care of patients.”

With an annual payroll of about $8.6 million, the hospital is one of the largest employers in Harvey County. Halstead is about 25 miles northwest of Wichita.