State reps., senators summoned to LGH
Earlier this month, the region’s state senators and representatives attended a secret meeting at Lowell General Hospital with president/CEO Normand Deschene and his counterpart from Saints Medical Center, Stephen Guimond.
The purpose of the meeting was update the legislators on continuing negotiations between the two hospitals that, if successful, will put financially-ailing Saints under the LGH umbrella.
More than three months have passed since the dueling hospitals agreed to “affiliate,” now that Saints has been unsuccessful in luring a deep-pocketed for-profit health-care entity to provide much-needed life-support.
With a partner, really a buyer, Saints hoped to squeeze Lowell General. Now, it’s relying on its long-time competitor/rival for its very survival.
Since the deal was announced last Oct. 6, extracting information from Lowell General, and Saints, has proven next to impossible. The fact that the meeting happened is the first substantial nugget of information to get out in some time.
Apparently, the legislators liked what they were told by Deschene and Guimond. Progress is being made through the “due diligence” phase, as lawyers are doing a lot of lawyering and accountants are doing a lot of accounting.
If you recall, this is precisely what several members of the Lowell delegation, particularly former Senator Steven Panagiotakos, wanted the hospitals to do a couple years ago. Lowell General was always interested, but Saints — hoping for a buy-out from any entity other than its despised cross-town rival — ignored the delegation’s plea for harmony and one, locally-controlled big health-care provider.
Today, Saints has no other choice.
As due-diligence continues, work is also underway to convince the Archdiocese of Boston to approve the deal, as Saints is a Catholic institution.
That shouldn’t prove insurmountable, as was the case in the 2000s, particularly now that the church sold its chain of six hospitals to Steward Health Care LLC for nearly $900 million in October 2010. Steward was the same chain that came close to buying Saints for nearly $100 million early last year before pulling the plug — for still unexplained reasons.
If you recall, former LGH President/CEO Robert Donovan and his counterpart at Saints, Thom Clark, had a merger deal in the red-zone before the archdiocese threw a flag over Lowell General having a majority on the combined Board of Trustees.
This drive appears it will make the end-zone
January 17, 2012 at 11:02 am
LGH has always been the better of the two hospitals. Hopefully this partnering will greatly improve the level of care at Saints .