U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Christopher Lopez approved an emergency motion filed by Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey's administration to provide Dallas-based Steward Health Care with $30 million in an Aug. 6 hearing.
"[There's] plenty of work to get done, but today is an important day to allow the hospitals to get much needed funding, and to have the certainty of receiving that funding," Mr. Lopez said during the hearing, attended by Becker's.
The payments, to be disbursed in two installments, are exclusively to fund operations at Steward's Massachusetts hospitals. The first will come on or around Aug. 9 at $11.3 million. The second will be on or around Aug. 16 at $18.7 million, according to court documents.
"The payment agreement represents the commonwealth's continued commitment to achieving the transition of these six remaining facilities to new operators," Hugh McDonald, lawyer for the commonwealth of Massachusetts and Executive Office of Health and Human Services, said during the hearing. "The parties have been working very hard over the past week not only to advance this document and the other documents, but all the sale documents."
Steward representative David Cohen also said key stakeholders in Steward's Chapter 11 bankruptcy case were able to attend meetings and resolve multiple issues regarding the funding and sale of Steward's remaining Massachusetts hospitals.
One includes Steward landlord Medical Properties Trust and its partner Macquarie Infrastructure Partners handing over Steward's Massachusetts hospitals to New York City-based Apollo Global Management, a global alternative asset manager. Mr. Cohen said that the goal of the handover is to "help facilitate the sale of such real property to the new operators."
The for-profit health system received approval from Mr. Lopez to close two of its Massachusetts hospitals, Boston-based Carney Hospital and Ayer-based Nashoba Valley Medical Center, by Aug. 31 in a July 31 hearing. Mr. Lopez also approved a request from Steward allowing new hospital buyers to negotiate new leases with each Massachusetts hospitals' landlord.
"There is still work to do in terms of finalizing the purchase agreements, but both the debtors [Steward] and the commonwealth believe that significant progress is being made," Mr. Cohen said.
Mr. Cohen also shared that there is heavy interest in Steward's physician group, Stewardship Health, after UnitedHealth Group's Optum scrapped plans to acquire the physician group in late June.
"We're very encouraged by the bids and how the bidding process is playing out," he said. "We do expect to announce a winner very soon and proceed towards a hearing next week to approve the sale of the physician group to the winning bidder."