Hospital Mergers: Recent Cases

Louisville, KY

Recently rejected by the Governor of Kentucky, this complex transaction involved three health systems in the metro area of Louisville (read more about this outcome in our News Section). University Hospital, Louisville’s safety-net hospital, was seeking to merge with Jewish Hospital and St. Mary’s HealthCare and St. Joseph Health System, which is owned by Denver-based Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI). The failed deal would have given Denver-based CHI a majority equity stake in the overall company.  As a result, all the merged assets of the new entity including traditionally non-Catholic facilities at Jewish and University hospitals would have been required to follow the ERDs. University officials insisted that the provision of tubal ligations at the time of birth was the only in-patient service that would have been banned and had made arrangements to move those cases to another hospital outside the downtown area. Public opposition from the community, health providers and lawmakers grew throughout the year and played a role in the Governor's decision. CHI has since merged with Jewish Hospital and St. Mary's HealthCare. Because Jewish Hospital does not offer materntiy servies, the impact of this transaction was not as serious.

Victory in Sierra Vista, AZ

Sierra Vista Regional Health Center, an independent secular facility in southeastern Arizona, had entered into a trial affiliation with the Carondelet Health Network, a Catholic health system, and banned key reproductive health services. Cochise County and two other rural counties had been left without any alternative access to these services. We helped create an active community coalition that organized protest rallies, picketing and community education forums, and gathered affidavits for a formal complaint that the National Women’s Law Center submitted to the state Attorney General. We also focused national media attention on this case, thereby pressuring the hospital board and CEO.  The hospital has now called an end to the trial affiliation, and will not pursue a permanent partnership with Carondelet.

Ground-breaking Solution in Kingston, NY

In the spring of 2009, the Foxhall Ambulatory Surgery Center opened in the parking lot of Kingston Hospital in Ulster County, NY. This “hospital-beside-a-hospital” is the first separately-incorporated alternative provider of reproductive health care created in a New York State religious-secular hospital merger case. Funded by a $4 million state grant, the Foxhall Center is providing abortions, sterilizations, vasectomies and contraception, following the state-mandated merger of secular Kingston Hospital with Catholic Benedictine Hospital. Post-partum tubal ligations continue to be provided to women delivering babies within Kingston Hospital under terms of the merger. Kingston Hospital also has no restrictions on emergency terminations of pregnancies, such as in the case of premature rupture of membranes or ectopic pregnancies.

Smart Compromise in Troy, NY

Hospital executives in another upstate New York community actively worked with local advocates to achieve a variation on the Kingston model. Northeast Health has agreed to abide by Catholic health restrictions upon completion of its affiliation with two Catholic systems, St. Peter’s Hospital (part of Catholic Health East) and Seton Health (part of the Catholic Ascension Health system). That change in hospital policy means an end to abortions, tubal ligations, contraceptive counseling and other services at Northeast Health's Samaritan Hospital in Troy and Memorial Hospital in Albany. The impact would be particularly severe in Troy, where the only other hospital is St. Mary’s, part of the Seton Health with which Northeast Health is affiliating.

The solution is the Burdett Care Center, a 20-bed maternity facility on the second floor of Samaritan Hospital. It is separately incorporated to insulate the center from the Catholic restrictions that now prevails in the rest of the hospital. As part of the state approval, the center had to be completed prior to the secular hospital’s merger with the two Catholic health systems. The Burdett Care Center consolidates all maternity services from both Troy hospitals and allows women delivering babies to have post-partum tubal ligations. The New York Department of Health approved the Certificate of Need for the Center and provided $6 million in funds from a state grant. It is the first such hospital-within-a hospital solution to a religious/secular merger in New York State, providing an important model for future religious/secular merger situations.