Conn. regulator approves major reduction in services at Prospect-owned hospital
Rockville General Hospital is one of three hospitals in Connecticut owned by Prospect Medical Holdings. (Photo by Shahrzad Rasekh/CT Mirror)
Connecticut officials reached a settlement with Prospect Medical Holdings clearing a path for the operator to permanently shutter all services aside from the emergency room and behavioral health at Rockville General Hospital in Vernon, according to an agreement published on May 23.
Rockville is one of three hospitals in Connecticut owned by Los Angeles-based Prospect Medical Holdings, which filed for bankruptcy in January.
The settlement signed on Friday between Prospect and the state of Connecticut concludes an ongoing state investigation into unauthorized service cuts at Rockville launched in October of last year. Prospect agreed that Connecticut will have a $300,000 claim included in the bankruptcy case as a result of the termination of services, subject to approval by the court.
The terms require Prospect to maintain emergency services at Rockville for three years and keep existing inpatient behavioral health services 'at or within 30 miles of their current location on the RGH campus.' However, it doesn't require the operator to reopen services that were cut without state permission.
The agreement also grants Prospect permission from the state's Office of Health Strategy, or OHS, to terminate Rockville's status as a full-service acute care hospital and convert it into a satellite campus of Manchester Memorial Hospital, located 20 minutes away. Prospect must now also obtain permission for the consolidation from the Department of Public Health, which oversees hospital licensing, Wendy Fuchs, a spokesperson for OHS confirmed.
A spokesperson for the Department of Public Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday.
In a Friday press release, OHS Commissioner Deidre Gifford said the agreement 'protects critical resources' for patients and families in the area.
'The agreement also holds the Prospect applicants accountable to the community, requiring public notice of past terminations and development of a strategic plan for the consolidated hospital. The plan must be developed with community input and presented to the community in a public forum,' Gifford's statement read.
The agreement requires Prospect to announce the consolidation of Rockville with Manchester Memorial publicly, create an interim strategic plan for services at Rockville and hold a community forum within 60 days.
Spokespeople with Prospect Medical Holdings and Eastern Connecticut Health Network, which owns Rockville General and Manchester Memorial, did not respond to a request for comment.
In March, Suzanne Koenig, a bankruptcy-court appointed patient care ombuds reported that, during a visit to Rockville General, she found that surgical services, as well as the intensive care and medical-surgical units at the hospital had remained closed since March 2020. The company did not receive state permission to permanently close any of those services in advance of doing so.
State law defines a termination of services as 'the cessation of any services for a period greater than one hundred eighty days.' Termination of services by a hospital without state approval can result in civil penalties of up to $1,000 per day.
The unauthorized cuts were the subject of an October 2023 investigation by the Connecticut Mirror.
When Prospect filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, state officials offered assurances that its three Connecticut hospitals would remain open and operating.
'Some people think bankruptcy means the lights go out and the party's over. That's not true at all. These hospitals are very successful,' Lamont said during a press conference in the days following the bankruptcy announcement.
Although Rockville General will technically remain operational, it will no longer be a stand-alone, full-service acute care hospital.
A spokesperson for Lamont did not return a request for comment.
Rep. Tammy Nuccio, R-Tolland, whose district contains Rockville General Hospital, said Friday that the state had failed her residents.
'Profit over people. That's what I think we've come to expect here unfortunately from OHS and the state when it comes to health care for residents that are not in large cities,' Nuccio said.
The agreement with the state will be binding for any future buyers of Prospect's Connecticut hospitals.
Yale New Haven Health first reached a tentative agreement to purchase the three facilities from Prospect for $435 million in 2022. But the deal has been mired in complications since then, including lawsuits and, most recently, Prospect's bankruptcy. In February, Yale said it would be 'impossible' to close the deal.
An auction process for the Prospect-owned hospitals will take place through bankruptcy court.
In the state's Friday announcement, OHS said the process is 'ongoing.' In court documents, the sale hearing was tentatively scheduled for June 5, but no notice of hearing has been officially posted and spokespeople for Prospect and their lawyers have not responded to multiple requests regarding the auction timeline.
This article first appeared on CT Mirror and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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