The Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings of private equity-funded Prospect Medical Holdings (PMH), the parent company of three Connecticut community hospitals, kicked off Tuesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Deborah Weymouth, president and CEO of Manchester Memorial Hospital, Rockville General Hospital, and Waterbury Hospital, is expected to tap into the hospitals’ own funds to finance their functioning during the bankruptcy process.

Until now, local management did not have direct access to those funds.

“We do generate a significant amount of cash that historically we have not had direct access to utilize in our local market,” Weymouth said. “First and foremost, I believe we’ll be dedicating that cash and that revenue to our operating expenses.”

A different picture was painted at the national level.

During the bankruptcy hearing in Texas Tuesday, a lawyer for Prospect said the California-headquartered company got “dangerously close” to running out of money last week.

The lawyer also said Prospect is in ongoing talks with Yale New Haven Health over the stalled $435 million sale of its Connecticut hospitals to Yale, and the talks now were at a different price point.

Prospect’s lawyers plan to transfer the lawsuit Yale filed to back out of the deal, from state court to the bankruptcy court.

In legal speak, the Texas court is what’s known as a court of equity, where the presiding judge Stacey Jernigan — who incidentally writes mystery novels involving bankruptcy judges — has the leeway when it comes to the order of distribution.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said his office would fight for equitable distribution.

“Our hope is that the court will focus not on creditors and all the stuff, right, but focus on the patients and focus on what’s best for the patients and these institutions to keep them open, and the employees,” Tong said.

In its declaration filed Monday, Prospect said the pandemic drove the California company into bankruptcy. But a recent U.S. Senate committee report blasted Prospect for draining local hospitals of money and saddling them with debt.

Meanwhile, Waterbury Hospital, Manchester Memorial, and Rockville General continue to see patients.

“We are open, and as always, our top priority remains to provide safe, high quality care to every patient who comes in,” Weymouth said.

The Connecticut Department of Public Health will continue to inspect the hospitals, and “those relationships continue,” Weymouth said. “Waterbury [Hospital] actually is working with an independent expert who is there on a regular basis.”

Weymouth said she expected the hospitals to remain open in the long term, in part because they would be hard to replace.

“These hospitals have significant value for far more than just their bed count,” Weymouth said. “We have a team of dedicated nurses, hospitalists, other physicians and staff who are ready and able to provide care. That adds value to our organization.”

The cost of closing or replacing the hospitals would amount to $1 million per bed, according to Weymouth.

Prospect currently owns and operates 16 hospitals in California, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, and plans to shift its focus entirely to its 7 hospitals in California post bankruptcy.

This story was first published Jan. 14, 2025 by Connecticut Public.

Growing up as a female in the United States of America, I was always told that a woman could do anything a man could do. Now, as a young American woman, I see that this is not the case. I am fearful.

With all of the freedoms put in place by the constitution, I would expect to have the right to my own body, and not expect others to make decisions for me. Biological men have this luxury.

Thankfully, in Connecticut, this “luxury” is granted to women because abortion is legal in the state for up to 24 weeks. This is not the case for women in the thirteen states in which abortion is banned and in the 11 other states that have tight restrictions on the procedure.

With the forthcoming turnover of the presidency back to the Trump administration, protecting rights is more important than ever. According to the CBS News analysis of Donald Trump’s abortion stance, there have been shifts in his perspective of abortion and his views on the legal discretion that states hold with this procedure.

With this uncertainty on the federal level on abortion, it is important that Connecticut continues to uphold the laws that have been passed here to protect it. 

The overturning of Roe. Vs. Wade in the Supreme Court was what opened my eyes to the importance of preserving women’s rights. In response to this national decision, pushed in part by the Trump administration, Connecticut passed laws to protect the rights of both medical providers and women accessing these resources. As a future healthcare worker, I admire Connecticut for the safeguards it has put in place to protect the medical providers and businesses that are committed to providing reproductive care. 

Connecticut’s governor, Ned Lamont, said, “Politicians should not get between a person and their doctor. As long as I am governor, reproductive rights will be protected in Connecticut, and I will do everything in my power to block laws from being passed that restrict those rights.”

This powerful idea has been supported by the actions of the Connecticut legislature. In May of 2022, the Public Act 22-19 was signed into effect. This law provided legal protections to healthcare providers and women accessing abortions along with expanding the medical professions that are permitted to work in abortion-related care. Also under Public Act 22-19, Connecticut provides the right for women who live in states with abortion bans to access safe abortions in Connecticut. 

In the wake of the new administration being elected, Connecticut must do more work to preserve the rights it has provided to its citizens. To guide this, it is important for sex education to be destigmatized and taught in school as a form of health and risk prevention. There should also be more not-for-profit reproductive health groups located across the state. For example, Planned Parenthood, a non-profit organization that provides low-cost sexual health and reproductive education resources. This organization provides abortions to individuals who need it along with birth control, cancer screening, and resources for health and wellness.

Many of the Planned Parenthood locations in Connecticut are located in densely populated cities which makes it difficult for those living in suburban and rural areas of Connecticut to access them. The education that this organization provides is important, especially to young women who do not know where to turn in terms of their reproductive health and safety. For this, I believe that the state of Connecticut should work to provide state-funded reproductive education to young individuals. By doing this, more young people can access important information in the form of government programming or school education.

I also believe that Planned Parenthood locations should be within a 30-mile radius of one another to ensure that each person in Connecticut can access the care and screening they need.  Although I am fearful for the right to my body in the United States as a whole, I am hopeful that Connecticut will continue to protect the right to abortion and be a safe haven for those needing to access the procedure. 

Deven Taggart is a sophomore at Sacred Heart University, majoring in Health Science with a concentration in Public Health.

Shierka Billips runs SVG On Demand from her basement in the Oakdale section of Montville.

She said TikTok is a huge part of her revenue and she’s made hundreds of thousands of dollars on the app.

“I’m emotional,” Billips said. “I’ve been thinking about it very hard and what it’s going to do for my small business.”

She has nearly 130,000 followers on her TikTok page and said her account has accounted for 60 to 80% of her growth of her revenue.

At Sam’s Barber Shop in Rocky Hill, owner Sam Balija said TikTok has introduced him to a new audience of people and even clients from out of state.

“Everybody wants to see your social media presence to see if you’re a legit as a business,” Balija said.

Balija and Billips are not alone. Connecticut is home to several small and large TikTok accounts and one of the app’s biggest creators, Charli D’Amelio, is from Norwalk.

In the United States, that app has over 170 million users, but the government is citing national security and data concerns as the reason for the ban. The app is owned by Chinese company ByteDance.

“TikTok itself is a U.S. based company,” Bree Fowler, cybersecurity writer at CNET, said. “It’s ByteDance, its parent, that is based in China, and the U.S. government doesn’t want ByteDance having any type of involvement with TikTok.”

TikTok is headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore, but also has an office in New York City.

The ban is set to take place on Sunday and while TikTok’s lawyers appeared in front of the Supreme Court last week, it’s not looking likely that they’ll reverse the decision.

ByteDance has until Jan. 19 to divest in TikTok or shut down the app. Experts predict that once the Jan. 19 deadline approaches, the app will still be available on users’ phones who already have it downloaded, but people may face glitches or bugs.