A federal bankruptcy judge in Texas has given the buyer of Roger Williams Medical Center and Our Lady of Fatima Hospital until March 6 to close the sale, according to court documents submitted Monday.
The one-week extension is intended to let The Centurion Foundation cement the private financing-backed deal to take over the cash-strapped hospitals, which otherwise face closure under bankrupt owner Prospect Medical Holdings.
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Attorneys with the Rhode Island attorney general’s office and Prospect’s bankruptcy estate asked for the Northern District Chief Judge Stacey Jernigan of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of Texas to push back Friday’s deadline by one more week to March 6, after Centurion announced it had finally secured the investor-backed bonds needed to carry the deal over the finish line.
Jernigan signed the extension request on Feb. 27 — the same day it was submitted to the Dallas bankruptcy court — but did not enter the signed copy into the public court record until Monday.
The 12-page agreement offers a recap of the long and tumultuous journey to sell the hospitals, which required multiple deadline extensions and modifications to the original conditions set by state regulators in their initial, June 2024 approval. The R.I. General Assembly in February 2025 authorized an $18 million injection from state reserve funds to serve as a backstop for investors if Centurion fails to make annual debt service payments on over $100 million in bonds.
A term sheet for the bond sale has not been made public, nor have the investors been publicly identified.
Ben Mingle, CEO of Centurion, said in a statement last week that the Atlanta nonprofit intends to close the sale by Thursday, March 5. If finalized, the purchase will immediately transition the two hospitals, with 500 beds and 2,400 employees between them, to nonprofit ownership under Centurion’s local subsidiary, CharterCARE Health of Rhode Island.
An update on the bond closing was not immediately available Monday.
Nancy Lavin is a staff writer for Rhode Island Current.
