Hearing set for Quincy hospital buy
Robert Weisman, Boston Globe, July 13, 2011
The state attorney general’s office and Department of Public Health have scheduled a combined public hearing for 6 PM, August 9, at Quincy High School on the application of Boston’s fast-growing Steward Health Care System to buy the bankrupt Quincy Medical Center.
Trustees of Quincy Medical voted last month to sell the 121-year-old community hospital to the for-profit Steward chain. The hospital filed for bankruptcy protection July 1 in a bid to shed debt before the sale is completed.
Because the sale would involve changing a nonprofit hospital into an investor-owned institution, it requires a recommendation from Attorney General Martha Coakley to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, which must approve the sale. Steward would also have to be granted a new hospital license by the Public Health Department.
Steward was created last year by New York private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management to operate the former Caritas Christi Health Care hospital system, which Cerberus purchased. It has since bought several other hospitals in eastern Massachusetts.
Meanwhile, registered nurses at Steward’s Holy Family Hospital in Methuen voted Monday night to be represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, according to the union. The union already represents nurses at five other Steward hospitals: Saint Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Carney Hospital in Dorchester, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, Norwood Hospital and Merrimack Valley Hospital in Haverhill.
© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.
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