Hoboken Looking to Run St Mary’s Hospital

As an update to my last Saint Mary’s Hospital in Hoboken post, it looks like the City of Hoboken is looking to buy the hospital from Bon Secours. According to the Hoboken Reporter, the NJ state legislature is looking to pass a bill that will allow the city to create a Hospital Authority, similar to the Hoboken Parking Authority, with its own budget and spending, otherwise the city would not be able to increase its spending to afford the hospital.

Hoboken Mayor Roberts said the hospital made a profit of $175,000 last month (June, 2006), and is being run by a turn-around expert Harvey A. Holzberg. This is in comparison of the previous financial losses of the hospital.

… lost $23.7 million in 2002, $10.8 million in 2003 and posted an operating loss of $18.6 million in 2004 …

… Bon Secours reported its first loss in 10 years-$20.4 million on $2.25 billion in revenue-largely because of its split from Christ Hospital, Jersey City…

And of course this all ties back to the three-hospital drama in Hoboken and Jersey City:

The original plan for St. Francis was to turn into a nursing home, but those plans were scrapped when the partnership between Bon Secours and Canterbury Health, the company that owns Christ Hospital in Jersey City, dissolved on Dec. 31.

The reason for the breakup was, according to Canterbury, that Bon Secours did not disclose the fiscal health of St. Francis and St. Mary.

The same Northwestern article quoted above also talks about other Bon Secours financial problems:

In early 2004, Bon Secours said it would restate two years of profits after discovering an executive manipulated seven years’ worth of operating income, assets and liabilities at a handful of Michigan operations, including Cottage Health Services.

Unraveling the scheme wiped $64.9 million in improperly or nonexistent assets from the system’s books.

So I honestly don’t trust the losses attributed to St. Mary’s till I see some specific financial statements, but I also can’t trust what a politician says about profits.

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