Steward Health Care has put all 31 of its hospitals up for sale, after filing for bankruptcy on Monday.
The largest private hospital chain in the US hopes to finalize all transactions by the end of the summer to address $9 billion in debt, its attorneys said at a Tuesday court hearing in Texas.
Steward, which runs hospitals in eight states, hopes to keep all hospitals open in the long term, attorney Ray Schrock said.
“Our goal remains that there are zero hospitals closed on our watch,” he said. “There’s going to be a change in ownership in many hospitals, we recognize that. But we don’t want to see any of these communities fail to be served.”
Steward filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Houston, Texas, on Monday after months of financial instability.
In court documents filed before the hearing, Steward said it had over $9 billion in total liabilities, including $1.2 billion in loans, $6.6 billion in long-term rent obligations, nearly $1 billion in unpaid bills from medical vendors and suppliers, and $290 million in unpaid employee wages and benefits.
The for-profit chain – which operates 31 hospitals across eight states and cares for 2.2 million patients a year – had $6 billion in annual revenue before filing for bankruptcy.
Shrock said it has been pursuing a sale of its physician group, Stewardship Health Care, for an amount that would repay the company’s loans and allow it to pay some of its vendors.
Steward had hoped to use the proceeds of that sale to avoid bankruptcy. But stalled regulatory approvals forced the company to seek short-term emergency financing that did not give Steward enough cash to continue operations for long, he added.
Read the full story in the Daily Mail.
