Trumbull hospitals transfer objection resolved
WARREN — An objection filed over the sale of Trumbull Regional Medical Center and Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital has been resolved, paving the way for the facilities to transfer to Michigan-based Insight Health System.
Medical equipment company Becton, Dickinson & Company and its affiliate, CareFusion Solutions, filed a limited objection Oct. 9 — the deadline to do so to Insight Health’s being named designated operator of the hospitals — asking, in part, for Steward Health Care to pay for its use of an automated medicine dispensing system under a lease between the companies.
The New Jersey-based company also sought that any sale order state the devices remain a part of the lease until Steward Health assumed or rejected the agreement signed in December 2017, or reached a separate agreement with Becton, Dickinson & Company.
Late Monday, attorneys for Steward Health filed paperwork in the bankrupt hospital operator’s Chapter 11 case stating the issue has been settled.
According to the document, Becton, Dickinson & Company and Steward Health “shall use commercially reasonable efforts to reach an agreement regarding the removal, disposition, use, or retention” of the equipment provided Insight Health isn’t obligated to pay for any cost related to the removal or disposition of the equipment ” in the absence of any agreement to the contrary” between Insight Health and Becton, Dickinson & Company.
In addition, Steward Health agreed to pay $45,962 to Becton, Dickinson & Company for services provided at Trumbull Regional and Hillside since Steward Health filed bankruptcy May 6.
The Oct. 9 filing claimed Steward Health owned Becton, Dickinson & Company about $11 million for systems delivered under the agreement. Also, according to the filing, about $1.8 million remained due since May 6. The filing stated about 42 facilities in Steward Health’s network use the system.
Insight Health, based in Flint, Michigan, was named designated operator of the local facilities Oct. 4 by Steward Health’s landlord, Medical Properties Trust of Alabama, which took control of Trumbull Regional in Warren and Hillside in Howland as well as 13 other facilities elsewhere with interim managers Sept. 11 after a settlement agreement in Steward Health’s bankruptcy case.
The transaction also includes several satellite facilities in Trumbull and Mahoning counties.
Insight Health will operate the hospitals with two not-for-profit organizations — Insight Health as Insight Foundation of Trumbull and Insight Foundation of Hillside, the same not-for-profit organizations that were named interim managers in September.
Insight Health is a physician-led organization that operates hospitals and other health care facilities in Michigan, Iowa, New Jersey and Illinois. It said earlier this month it was always the company’s intention to assume ownership of the hospitals.
In another filing late Monday, a hearing on a request from Western Reserve Health Education Inc. — a nonprofit that operates residency training programs at Trumbull Regional — to compel Steward Health to assume or reject a contract it has with the group for the program has been adjourned to “a date to be determined.”
No reason for the delay was given in the filing. Steward Health has until Nov. 15 to respond.


