Bid for Landmark to have ‘no effect’

WOONSOCKET – The announcement of a letter of intent by RegionalCare Hospital Partners, a for-profit hospital group based in Brentwood, Tenn., to purchase Landmark Medical Center will not pre-empt the court-ordered bidding process, said Michael Trainor, Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee’s spokesman.

“The letter of intent is nonbinding and nonexclusive,” Trainor told Providence Business News. “It will have no effect on the bidding process and timetable that Steven M. Constantino [director of the R.I. Office of Health and Human Services] is seeking to achieve.” Other bidders, Trainor continued, “are still going to place offers on the table, according to the time table set by the court.”

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Under a court order sought by the Chafee administration to expedite the sale of Landmark and approved by Superior Court Judge Michael A. Silverstein, a March 25 deadline has been set to receive bids from potential buyers for the financially troubled community hospital. On April 1, Jonathan N. Savage, the court-appointed receiver in charge of the financially troubled Landmark, is scheduled to make the bids public and recommend a bidder. The hospital’s sale would then be approved at an April 6 hearing before Judge Silverstein, according to the timetable.

One potential bidder, Lifespan, is “continuing due diligence” to research and review the opportunity to acquire Landmark, according to Gail Leach Carvelli, Lifespan’s manager of media relations.

Caritas Christi Health Care, whose attempt to purchase Landmark stalled in December 2010, is not interested in bidding again at this time, according to spokesman Chris Murphy.

Maria Montanaro, president and CEO of Thundermist Health Center in Woonsocket, criticized the bid by RegionalCare, saying its priorities were likely to be far different than those of a nonprofit hospital. “Their model is not likely based on a vision of long-term sustainability, quality and integration [of services] for Landmark,” she said.
Further, she continued, “I imagine there will be terms in the letter of intent, not yet disclosed to the public or approved to the court, that will provide payment to RegionalCare should the court award the bid to a competitor – a break-up fee of sorts. This cost will likely have to be borne by the winning bidder, another financial bar to climb over. There is a brokerage fee to Nemzoff [&Co.] as well, which is now part of the public record. A lot of folks stand to gain financially from their dealings with our failing community hospital.”

Montanaro, whose community health center serves 20,000 patients in Woonsocket every year, said the bid by RegionalCare would make it much harder to solve Landmark’s problems.

“We understand, profoundly, the health care needs of our community. I will tell you, unequivocally: today, we took a step back from meeting those needs. It will now be that much harder for nonprofit, Rhode Island-based institutions like Thundermist and Lifespan to come forward and prevail in developing a meaningful solution to the problems at Landmark.”