Bidding war over hospitals

With bids for the sale of two St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers (SVCMC) affiliates, St. John’s Hospital Queens and Mary Immaculate Hospital, due by tomorrow Friday, June 16, The Queens Courier has learned that at least three area hospitals are interested in submitting bids to acquire one or both hospitals.
Wyckoff Heights Hospital, which The Courier first reported had expressed interest in taking over the facilities in late March, and reached an asset purchase agreement with St. Vincent on May 10, made it the preferred choice by St. Vincent to take over both facilities, according to Michael Fagan, a spokesperson for SVCMC.
Now, in addition to Wyckoff, it appears that Jamaica Hospital Medical Center will submit a bid for Mary Immaculate, and Long Island Jewish Medical Center is mulling a bid for St. John’s Hospital.
“We expect to participate in the auction process,” said David P. Rosen, president of Jamaica Hospital and its parent company, MediSys Health Network. Terry Lynam, a spokesperson for Long Island Jewish was less committal about their prospects.
“We have not made a decision whether we are going to submit a bid,” he said, but he went on to say that, “there is definitely some interest there.”
Any group interested in submitting a bid for the properties has until Friday, June 16, to submit a bid to St. Vincent’s, and then if there are competing bids, an auction will be held on Wednesday, June 21. Then, the bid would go to court for approval on Monday, June 26.
“If it is all approved by the court, then we would start a process of regulatory approval through the Department of Health,” Fagan said.
Although none of the interested bidders or St. Vincent would tip their hand about the bid amounts or go into specifics about their intentions, Wyckoff Heights remains hopeful.
“We believe that we responded accurately and completely to the sale request from St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers,” said Vinny Arcuri, a member of the board of trustees at Wyckoff and chairman of Community Board 5. “At the time, we were the only ones.”