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Waterbury Hospital CEO Calls on Gov. Malloy to Help Salvage Tenet Deal

Darlene Stromstad, CEO of Waterbury Hospital.
Waterbury Hospital
Darlene Stromstad, CEO of Waterbury Hospital.
"If the union leaders were out celebrating last Thursday night, the union membership that is part of my organization were weeping, because they're scared."
Darlene Stromstad

Five hospitals in Connecticut are contemplating their next steps after Texas-based Tenet Healthcare withdrew a bid to buy the hospitals last week.

The CEO of one of the biggest hospitals in the failed deal said they're now looking to Hartford for help. 

Last week, Tenet Healthcare cited the state's approach to regulatory oversight as the reason it pulled its bid to buy Waterbury Hospital, St. Mary's, Manchester Memorial, Bristol, and Rockville General hospitals.

The state Attorney General's office and the Office of Health Care Access drafted a long list of conditions for Tenet which wanted to convert the hospitals to for-profit status. The conditions included no changes to staffing or service levels for five years.

Waterbury Hospital CEO Darlene Stromstad said that unraveled years of work on the proposed deal. "There has been one obstacle put in front of the other over the last two years, and I think those 70 conditions -- when they came out, that was the final straw," she said.

Credit Daniel Case / Creative Commons
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Creative Commons
Waterbury Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital are both in Waterbury, Connecticut.

Stromstad said the hospital is now meeting to figure out ways to cut more of its expenses and costs. She said the hospital is already dealing with $9.77 million in decreased reimbursements from state and federal governments. Layoffs are a possibility, but first the hospital will freeze new hiring, and look to attrition over the next several months. 

"I think [Gov. Malloy] would be able to set a dialogue around these conditions, and define an environment in which a company like Tenet would want to come in and work in Connecticut."
Darlene Stromstad

Stromstad said there's also hope the Tenet deal can be salvaged, but she said only one person can do that: Governor Dannel Malloy. "I think he would be able to set a dialogue around these conditions, and define an environment in which a company like Tenet would want to come in and work in Connecticut," she said. "If that's not true for Tenet, it won't be true for anyone else either." 

Stromstad said the hospitals were hoping to meet with the governor this week, but that hasn't happened yet. In a statement, the governor's chief of staff, Mark Ojakian, said they're working on finding a solution.

Meanwhile, the union that represents 500 nurses at Waterbury Hospital, Connecticut Health Care Associates, said in a statement: "From the start, our union had serious concerns that a for-profit company with Tenet's history was the right solution for helping Waterbury Hospital meet its challenges."

The hospital CEO disagreed. "There is a huge disconnect between union leaders and union workers," she said. "I'll tell you, if the union leaders were out celebrating last Thursday night, the union membership that is part of my organization were weeping, because they're scared."

ER nurse Stephanie Tomashevsky is one of them. She has worked at the hospital for 18 years. "The majority of my staff and co-workers are disappointed and sad that this didn't go through," she said. "Absolutely, we're worried about job security." 

Lucy leads Connecticut Public's strategies to deeply connect and build collaborations with community-focused organizations across the state.

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