PROVIDENCE – As the state prepares to provide the prospective buyer of Roger Williams Medical Center and Our Lady of Fatima Hospital with $18 million to help close the long-pending deal while reopening bids to other suitors, the United Nurses and Allied Professionals labor union, which represents employees at both hospitals, is urging officials to prioritize its existing agreement.
Last week, state officials proposed a new plan to provide Atlanta-based nonprofit The Centurion Foundation – the only current suitor – with $18 million if it can finalize a deal to purchase the two hospitals. The legislation that would enact this plan also reopens the bidding process to other potential buyers.
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The union has long supported Centurion’s bid for the hospitals, and on Jan. 29 stood by this conviction.
The health care professional union “has been steadfast in asking state leaders to do whatever it takes to keep these important community hospitals open,” said UNAP spokesperson Brad Dufault.
“Centurion now has a deal in place to close by the end of February, with the condition that state leaders pass legislation creating an $18 million reserve fund, only to be used as a backstop,” he continued. “This is the quickest and possibly only way to get this deal done in the next six weeks. We are calling on state leaders to move quickly, pass this legislation and save these important community hospitals.”
The long-precarious state of the two medical facilities became increasingly dire when owner Prospect Medical Holdings declared bankruptcy in early 2025.
The Centurion Foundation expressed interest in buying the two safety net hospitals in 2022 but has struggled to secure funding.
Last week, Centurion Foundation CEO Ben Mingle said that the nonprofit has secured “verbal commitments from several investment groups meeting the needed $85 million in bonds, enough to fund the transition and return these hospitals, and their 2,400 employees and physicians, to not-for-profit status and local control.”
Jacquelyn Voghel is a PBN staff writer. You may reach her at Voghel@PBN.com.
