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By Elinor Nelson
As negotiations proceed with an unspecified buyer for Massachusetts'
MetroWest Medical Center (formerly Framingham Union Hospital and
its sister campus, Leonard Morse Hospital of Natick), community
activists are hoping that the new ownership will maintain the existing
services.
Steven Campanini, spokes-person for the California-based parent
company, Tenet Healthcare Corporation, declined to provide specifics
about the potential buyer and suggested that when the deal is announced,
questions about service lines may be directed to the buyer. He states,
however, that Tenet's criteria for a qualified buyer include access
to sufficient capital, an experienced hospital management team,
experience operating an acute care hospital and a commitment to
keeping the hospital open as an acute care facility with functional
emergency rooms.
Campanini adds that it would be "premature to discuss mental health
or specific services." Tenet is, he says, "working to find a buyer
who meets the needs of all concerned."
Local public health activists describe a good working relationship
with Tenet at MetroWest. Nancy King, director of South Middlesex
Legal Services and a member of the MetroWest Community Health Care
Coalition, says "we don't always agree, but they're always accessible
and often responsive to issues we bring them."
King is "hoping and wanting to establish the same relationship
with the new owner." King's Coalition advocates for the health needs
of low income, uninsured and underinsured people. When it comes
to mental health, King hopes the new owner will maintain the inpatient
psychiatric beds (48, including 12 pediatric, 20 adult, and 16 geriatric),
as well as the current outpatient partial hospital program for adults
and adolescents. "We certainly want the new owner to work with community
mental health and substance abuse providers and make sure there's
an integration of services," she says.
Diane Gould, LICSW, a senior vice president of Advocates, Inc.,
a provider organization, and co-chairperson of the MetroWest Mental
Health and Substance Abuse Task Force, a committee of the MetroWest
Health Care Coalition, is another community activist. She also notes
a "strong interest in those services not being disrupted." Now,
Gould sees a "nice balance of what the hospital does and what we
[providers] do, and we want to maintain that." Statewide, Gould
observes a "substantial loss of detoxification services" and hopes
the new owners "work with us to ensure detox services."
MetroWest Medical Center has been "very active in the community
and respectful of what the community has to offer, seeing that the
hospital provides important services, and community providers do
as well," she says.
The sale of MetroWest Medical Center is, according to Campanini,
"part of a larger reorganization" geared to help the company return
to profitability. The company has been facing losses over the last
six quarters and seeks to divest itself of more than 27 facilities
which "no longer make geographic sense, or are not profitable."
Since the closest Tenet facility is in Philadelphia, MetroWest is
not thought to "make geographic sense."
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