Connecticut
CT presents draft settlement in YNHH-Prospect hospitals sale
State officials have presented a draft settlement agreement to parties involved in Yale New Haven Health’s bid to purchase three Connecticut hospitals owned by Prospect Medical Holdings, and hospital executives are exchanging proposals with the state, a spokeswoman for Office of Health Strategy told The Connecticut Mirror.
“In-person meetings are taking place, and the state continues to advocate for a settlement that ensures access, quality, equity and affordability for the residents in the impacted areas,” the spokeswoman, Tina Kumar Hyde, said.
Representatives for Prospect Medical, Yale New Haven Health and Eastern Connecticut Health Network, which owns Manchester Memorial and Rockville General hospitals, could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday. A spokeswoman for Waterbury Hospital declined to comment.
Hospital leaders agreed last month to keep the negotiations with OHS confidential. They have been meeting regularly and are scheduled to meet again next week, sources said.
Hospital executives, legislators, health care workers and local officials have called on the state to expedite its approval of the YNHH-Prospect deal, which has been pending for more than a year.
Records show that the acquisition has already taken longer to gain state approval than several other Connecticut hospital mergers. YNHH’s purchase of Milford Hospital in 2019 took 204 days from the time a certificate of need was filed, Hartford HealthCare’s acquisition of Saint Vincent’s Medical Center the same year took 267 days, YNHH’s purchase of the Hospital of Saint Raphael in 2012 took 147 days, YNHH’s merger with Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in 2016 took 337 days, and Hartford HealthCare’s 2017 acquisition of Charlotte Hungerford Hospital took 351 days.
As of Thursday, the YNHH-Prospect deal has gone 373 days without state approval.
Meanwhile, as the months pass, hospital executives, legislators and local officials say the threat of closure is growing, with the Prospect hospitals owing tens of millions of dollars to vendors and physicians and in taxes.
Surgeries have been postponed because health care providers don’t have the needed resources. Contracts with traveling nurses and technicians are in jeopardy and remain in place only on a “week-to-week” basis, physicians at the hospitals said. An anesthesiologist group is suing over nonpayment of more than $3 million. The hospitals were also hit with a cyberattack over the summer that crippled operations and set them back further financially.
But Kumar Hyde has said the current deal is more complex than any the agency has dealt with over the past decade.
While many certificate of need applications were approved more quickly, some — such as Hartford HealthCare’s acquisition of Charlotte Hungerford Hospital — are similar in length to the YNHH-Prospect deal, she noted.
“There are three hospitals involved in this transaction, while most other transactions in the past 10 years have only involved one hospital. The process has involved three times the data collection, analysis and synthesis,” Kumar Hyde said.
“OHS’ obligation in reviewing Transfer of Ownership applications is to ensure that the statutory requirements of addressing quality, access and cost effectiveness are met. Our obligation is to ensure we have adequate information to address those concerns, and to protect the interests of the public in every transaction reviewed. It is not unusual for complex hospital acquisitions that require multiple layers of review to take a year or more to complete.”
Sources have told CT Mirror that YNHH officials are seeking $16 million per year over five years, or $80 million total, from the state to help with recovery efforts from the recent cyberattack across the three Prospect-owned hospitals, to update computer systems and to address “deteriorating” conditions at the facilities. YNHH has also asked Prospect Medical to adjust the previously agreed upon purchase price of $435 million.
In the meantime, the hospitals are struggling. In a meeting with about 30 legislators in September, ECHN and Waterbury Hospital executives said they are behind on paying bills and, if the deal with YNHH is not approved, the facilities may not remain financially viable or functional, according to people in attendance.
The executives have said they owe millions to vendors and physicians contracted to provide care at the hospitals.
Yale New Haven Health officials are concerned about the software at the Prospect-owned hospitals following the cyberattack, which began in early August and lasted for nearly six weeks. At the meeting with legislators, the computer system used by the hospitals was described as outdated.
Earlier this month, lawmakers and health care workers from Waterbury Hospital and ECHN also rallied at the state capitol in an effort to speed up the deal.
“This is the first time I’m seeing a real scenario, I’m sorry to say, that these hospitals could close,” said Dr. Saqib Naseer, a cardiologist who has worked in the Eastern Connecticut Health Network. “This has dragged on too long to the extent that we are worried if they put enough conditions on Yale, they could walk away because they are under no obligation to do this. If Yale walks away, there is no other buyer for these hospitals.”
Connecticut
Thousands without power as storms rip through CT
More than 10,000 customers were without power Saturday evening as thunderstorms rolled through wide swathes of Connecticut.
Eversource, which serves 1,312,610 customers in Connecticut, had 11,584 customers without power as of just before 8 p.m. Saturday. Of the total, 1,850 outages were in Monroe as of that hour.
United Illuminating, which serves 344,849 customers in 17 Connecticut town, had 1,009 customers without power at 8 p.m. Most of the outages were in New Haven, Milford, Orange and Woodbridge.
CT’s extreme heat is landing people in hospital. Don’t just drink water on hot days, doctor says
Amid abysmal heat in Connecticut this week weather forecasters had predicted days of intermittent rain.
Here’s why so much of the US is broiling this week.
The National Weather Service, which now says the current heat advisory is through 8 p.m. Sunday, also forecasts periodic thunder storms for this weekend. The heat wave, accompanied by high humidity, has made it feel like 95 to 105 degrees or even hotter most of this week. This prolonged period of intense heat began on Monday and will persist until Sunday, with the most intense heat hitting the last few days.
Weather delay halts third round of Travelers Championship with Kim, Bhatia tied for lead
Connecticut
CT DOT updates $20M replacement of highway bridge destroyed in fiery crash
The Connecticut Department of Transportation, or DOT, has provided an update on the Fairfield Avenue Bridge replacement over Interstate 95 in Norwalk, according to a statement.
The bridge had previously been demolished following a fiery crash on May 2.
With the design finished on June 1, workers have recently begun removing the damaged center of the bridge pier on June 18, according to the DOT. Workers have also begun repairing the concrete abutments that will support the future bridge.
“This project is moving forward at incredible speed thanks to the hard work and dedication of the CTDOT and Yonkers crews who have remained in constant communication over the last several weeks. Thanks to continued strong collaboration, we remain optimistic of meeting our goals to have this bridge fully reopened next spring,” said Connecticut Department of Transportation Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto.
Woman in critical condition after being found in CT parking lot with life-threatening injuries
The total cost for the bridge replacement is estimated at $15 million, per a statement. The total project is expected to be approximately $20 million, with the federal government expected to cover up to 80% of the costs for the entire project.
I-95 overpass in Connecticut scorched during a fuel truck inferno demolished
Cameras will be installed to allow for viewing of the I-95 area construction process as well, according to the DOT.
Connecticut
Kevin Rennie: Connecticut Bar Association is familiar with silence at crucial moments
Watch your mouth. That was the message from the Connecticut Bar Association’s three top leaders to the organization’s thousands of members, of which I’m one. The June 13 statement was prompted by perpetually aggrieved Donald Trump supporters hurling abuse at prosecutors, jurors and Judge Juan Merchan after the former president’s conviction this month on 34 counts of violating New York law through a 2016 hush money scheme.
The CBA officers, Maggie Castinado, James T. Shearin and Emily A. Gianquinto, condemned but did not name public officials who issued statements calling the trial a sham, hoax, and rigged; abused Judge Merchan as corrupt and unethical; and claimed the jury was partisan and in the bag for guilty verdicts from the start.
The statement excoriated social media posts seeking to breach the confidentiality of the jurors’ identity. What it did not allege is that any Connecticut lawyers were participating in these assaults on the rule of law. Near its conclusion, the trio’s homily got to the point. “It is up to us, as lawyers,” they wrote, “to defend the courts and our judges. As individuals, and as an Association, we cannot let the charged political climate in which we live dismantle the third branch of government. To remain silent renders us complicit in that effort.”
And then U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a lawyer, had to go and spoil it all three days later by unleashing the same type of hyperbole. He called the Supreme Court “brazenly corrupt and brazenly political” on CNN. Murphy added that Justice Clarence Thomas is “just a grift,” while Justice Samuel Alito is an open political partisan.
As of Friday, the civility umpires at the CBA had issued no statement chiding Murphy.
The CBA is familiar with silence at crucial moments. Six years ago, a mob of antisemites targeted the renomination of Judge Jane Emons to the Superior Court. Judge Emons was the target of appalling rhetoric. The CBA released no thunderbolts as the House of Representatives refused to vote on her renomination, forcing her off the bench.
A few years ago, I wrote about Alice Bruno, a Connecticut judge who failed to show up for work for two years while continuing to receive her salary and benefits. Emails showed plenty of people knew that Judge Bruno had been missing in action, but they remained silent. Bruno’s fate was decided in a secret proceeding when she was granted a disability pension that currently pays her more than $5,000 every two weeks. She worked, often erratically, as a Superior Court judge for only four years before she stopped showing up in 2019.
Before becoming a judge, Bruno did an 18-month stint as executive director of the Connecticut Bar Association. It remained silent throughout the Bruno saga, which undermined the public’s confidence in the judiciary.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a sensational investigation into the appalling saga of a federal bankruptcy judge and his personal relationship with lawyer Elizabeth Freeman, who had been his law partner and clerk in Houston. One of the nation’s biggest law firms, Kirkland & Ellis, brought in Freeman to work with it on cases before her boyfriend, Judge David R. Jones.
An anonymous letter lit the fuse on exposing the shocking conflicts at work in the nation’s busiest bankruptcy court. Michael Van Deelan, a small investor in a firm that filed for bankruptcy in the Houston court, believed he had not been treated fairly in the shakeout of the company. Van Deelan received a copy of the letter and filed it with the court in an attempt to have Jones disqualified from his case. Van Deelan’s motion was denied and the letter was sealed from public view, the Journal reported.
Van Deelan discovered through an internet search that Jones and Freeman owned a house together since 2017. Plenty of lawyers appear to have known that the two were engaged in a romantic relationship. To expose it would have ended a sweet arrangement that was a bonanza for the firms and their bankruptcy clients who brought Freeman in on their cases.
No one said a word. Only Van Deelan, a 74-year-old retired math teacher, brought justice where corruption ruled. It took an Appellate Court judge only a week to find probable cause by Jones for failing to disclose his relationship with Freeman. He resigned.
It requires no courage for bar association leaders to condemn those discreditable officials who donned red ties and made pilgrimages to New York to stand outside the courthouse to mewl and whine that the justice system was targeting the loathsome demagogue, Donald Trump.
To shine a searing light when something goes wrong in the judicial branch of government when no one is paying attention— that’s what protects the integrity of the system.
Kevin Rennie can be reached at kfrennie@yahoo.com
-
Politics1 week ago
President Biden had front row seat to dog, Commander, repeatedly biting Secret Service agents: report
-
News1 week ago
171,000 Traveled for Abortions Last Year. See Where They Went.
-
Politics1 week ago
Trump travels to DC to meet with congressional Republicans, speak with nation's top business executives
-
News6 days ago
It's easy to believe young voters could back Trump at young conservative conference
-
World6 days ago
Swiss summit demands 'territorial integrity' of Ukraine
-
Politics1 week ago
Biden’s ’pre-9/11 posture’ to blame for ISIS migrants slipping through cracks: expert
-
World1 week ago
Russian warships in Cuba: Is it a port of call or show of strength?
-
World1 week ago
Election aftermath – MEPs to watch on economic and financial policy