Two hospitals are facing uncertainty
State has little say on pending sales
FRAMINGHAM --
Harry Anderson, a spokesman for California-based Tenet, said community opinion would not factor into the evaluation of proposals to buy MetroWest Medical Center, which the for-profit company hopes to sell within 10 months.
"We would negotiate a sales agreement with a buyer," he said.
The plan to sell the hospitals has left health-care advocates concerned about the medical center's twin facilities, Leonard Morse Hospital in Natick and Framingham Union Hospital, which together have 459 beds and 2,460 employees. They fear the transition could result in a reduction in care, the elimination of teaching programs, and the closing of the hospital campus in Natick.
Tenet officials said they hope the next owner will maintain both facilities.
"The intention is and the expectation is they will be sold to qualified buyers who will continue to operate them," Anderson said.
But Steven Campanini, another company official, said Tenet would not seek guarantees about the future of local care.
"Ultimately, we have no control," he said.
The hospitals have changed hands twice since 1996, when the nonprofit owner, MetroWest Health Inc., sold an 80 percent share to Columbia/Healthcare Corp. At the time, the state attorney general imposed extensive obligations on the buyer, including a pledge to keep open both campuses and improve hospital infrastructure.
But in the pending sale, between two for-profit companies, the state has no such authority, said Dr. Arnold Relman, a professor at Harvard Medical School and a critic of for-profit hospital ownership. Relman, who has cautioned against private ownership in speeches throughout the country, said the process offers little chance to influence a new for-profit owner.
The community, he said, "should be very nervous about the fact that their hospital is in the hands of people who are looking at it as an investment. They don't know Framingham. They don't care about Framingham."
Before it sold its remaining 20 percent stake in the medical center last spring, MetroWest Health retained limited authority and played a role in the sale to Tenet in 1999. This time around, with the nonprofit set to merge this week with the MetroWest Community Health Care Foundation, the community must rely on state oversight.
Area residents will have one public hearing to scrutinize a potential buyer, with the possibility of submitting written testimony and appearing before the Public Health Council, the state Department of the Public Health's governing body, which grants hospital licenses.
"There will be no opportunity to evaluate who the potential buyers were," said Roger Peloquin, president of MetroWest Health. "You won't be able to influence Tenet."
Peloquin has criticized the decision to liquidate the group's minority stake, a move that dissolves MetroWest Health and eliminates his six-figure salary. He said the transfer could bring an end to the teaching program and the closing of the emergency room in Natick, located not far from Newton-Wellesley Hospital and its sister hospital in Framingham. Unlike in 1999, he said, the group has no ability to wrest promises from a potential owner.
"We don't have the authority to say, 'No, you can't close,'" said Paul Dreyer, a state health official who will help analyze Tenet's choice of buyer. "Any hospital has the right to dispose of its assets."
