Posted on 12/15/2015 2:00:52 PM PST by Citizen Zed
Ending almost two years in limbo, the financially beleaguered Daughters of Charity Health System on Monday announced it has closed a $260 million investment deal with an East Coast hedge fund that will keep one of the Bay Area's oldest hospital chains afloat for at least three more years.
The news came 11 days after California Attorney General Kamala Harris gave her conditional approval for the largest nonprofit hospital transaction in state history, and the first to involve a hedge fund.
Unlike the controversy and staunch opposition generated by the hospitals' previous suitor, the deal with BlueMountain Capital Management registered mostly relief from the public that some kind of solution had finally been achieved.
Still, some patients expressed concern about the Los Altos Hills-based hospital system changing hands from a Catholic-run organization to a New York City-based group of investors.
"I'm worried about the human aspect, the compassion, the quality of human contact," Valerie Bellinger, a patient at O'Connor Hospital in San Jose, said Monday afternoon. "Sometimes that gets lost when they're only concerned about the almighty dollar."
But O'Connor employee Gregg Woods, who works in the hospital's environmental services department and serves as a union shop steward, said after the hospital chain lost hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years: "We don't think this is bad."
The fate of the Daughters hospitals, a safety-net system that serves low-income patients, has been a major concern for health care advocates who have worried the hospitals would close, leaving the poor with few options for much-needed care.
In addition to O'Connor Hospital, the chain includes Saint Louise Regional Medical Center in Gilroy, Seton Medical Center in Daly City and Seton Medical Center Coastside in Moss Beach, and two hospitals in Los Angeles. The chain will be renamed Verity Health System.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
I thought liberals consider hedge funds evil? Unless one of their own such as a Clinton son in law runs one????
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