Steward Healthcare announced late Wednesday night that it had again postponed a sale hearing for a Massachusetts hospital. The hearing, which had been scheduled for Friday, has been postponed until Aug. 22, the company announced in a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
Dallas-based Steward said it had submitted bids for five Massachusetts hospitals but did not disclose the identities of the bidders or details of the bids. The hospitals up for sale are St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Brighton, St. Ann Hospital in Fall River, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, Morton Hospital in Taunton and Holy Family Hospital in Haverhill and Methuen.
The company has already received court approval to close Kearney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer.
The latest in a series of delays came the same week that the bankrupt company announced it had reached an agreement to sell its physician network to Rural Healthcare Group, a subsidiary of a New York private equity firm, for $245 million in cash. The deal is awaiting court approval at a hearing this Friday at 10 a.m., the filing said.
The Massachusetts government has a contract with Steward for a $30 million upfront Medicaid payment to keep the state's hospitals open through August, but officials did not respond to questions this week about whether any payments had been made or would be made under the terms of that contract. Officials have asked for Steward to close a deal to buy the Massachusetts hospitals by Aug. 9 and for the bankruptcy court to approve the sale by Aug. 15.
Instead, the Department of Health and Human Services said Monday it was disappointed that asset purchase agreements had not been signed at that time for the remaining five hospitals up for sale.
Also Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice filed objections at a postponed hearing this Friday regarding Steward's original plan to seek court approval for the sale of Stewardship Health and several of its hospitals in three states.
The federal government “opposes the proposed sale to the extent it seeks to transfer the Debtors' Medicare Part A provider contracts in violation of applicable federal law,” the filing said.The Justice Department indicated it filed the objection and reservation of rights because Steward has not yet revealed the identities of the companies that bid for the hospitals it plans to sell.
The court-approved procedures that the Steward must follow during a bankruptcy sale proceeding allow the bankruptcy court or the Steward to “postpone or reschedule” the sale hearing.
Reporting by Collin A. Young, Statehouse News Service.
