Prospective Forum bidder, unions meet

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

alcorn@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Community Health Systems, a prospective second bidder for bankrupt Forum Health, has met with Forum’s unions and wants to meet with them again next week.

Ardent Health Services, which has offered to buy Forum Health for $69.8 million, and the unions negotiated memorandums of understanding before Ardent filed its offer with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Forum Health filed for Chapter 11 under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in March 2009.

Community Health Systems, which has not offered to buy Forum, met for about an hour with leaders of the Ohio Nurses Association on Thursday but offered little information, union officials said.

Like Ardent, CHS is based in Tennessee.

CHS representatives did not answer basic questions but did say they would get back in touch, said Eric Williams, president of Youngstown General Duty Nurses Association/ONA, which represents registered nurses at Forum’s Northside Medical Center in Youngstown.

Williams said he understood that CHS also met with leaders of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union and Service Employees International Union.

Those unions represent employees at Northside and Forum’s other hospitals, Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren and Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital in Howland.

Community Health did not have any proposals or ideas to discuss with the ONA about the contract or otherwise, Williams said. Bids must be submitted to the court by Aug. 3. Another meeting with CHS is scheduled for Wednesday.

Ardent filed the memorandums this week with the bankruptcy court under seal, with Judge Kay Woods to determine who sees them. Those memorandums have been sought by Forum’s creditors.

In other action, McDonald Hopkins, one of the legal firms representing Forum, has sent letters to people who have been Forum patients within the past two years notifying them that the health-care system is to be sold and that the proposed purchaser, Ardent, will not be responsible for certain claims against Forum, including malpractice claims.

After the sale, according to the letter, Forum likely will not have insurance for malpractice claims. As a result, any malpractice claims that are made after the sale likely will not be paid in full.

The letter makes patients aware that if they want to object to the sale, they must file their objection with the bankruptcy court by 8 a.m. Aug. 9 and attend the hearing on the sale at 9:30 a.m. Aug. 10. The letter said patients who do not object to the sale need not take any action.