High-stakes takeover bid for St. Mary’s Hospital in Passaic fraught with politics
Last updated: Sunday March 10, 2013, 3:53 PM
BY LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITER
The Record
On its face, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would want to buy a money-losing, debt-ridden hospital serving mostly poor patients in one of New Jersey’s poorest cities.
St. Mary’s Hospital in Passaic — the last remaining medical center in a declining mill city that once boasted three — has been propped up by state aid since declaring bankruptcy six years ago. Its open-heart surgery program, the first in New Jersey, performs fewer than 90 bypasses a year. Fewer than half of its 269 licensed beds are filled on an average night. At times, the hospital has barely met payroll.
Yet a California-based for-profit hospital chain, founded and owned by an enterprising cardiologist, plans to buy the hospital and turn it around. From Passaic, Prime Healthcare Services plans to expand and take over other New Jersey hospitals, starting with St. Michael’s Medical Center, the last Catholic hospital in Newark.
Prime’s push into New Jersey has sparked rivalries worthy of a novel, based on the perceived potential for profit from the millions of dollars passing through even the most hard-pressed hospitals.
