BRUNSWICK, Maine — Board members and administrators from both organizations stood together Friday morning to announce that the sale of the former Parkview Adventist Medical Center to Mid Coast Health Services, the parent company of Mid Coast Hospital, became final Thursday evening.
“We have figured out that we are stronger together than we ever were apart,” Bob Cundiff, president of the Northern New England Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and former chairman of the Parkview board of directors, told those gathered at the newly named Parkview Medical Center, part of what will become Mid Coast-Parkview Health.
Under the new organization, Mid Coast Hospital will continue to provide inpatient acute care, surgical, maternity and emergency room services — Parkview’s maternity unit closed in 2008, and its emergency department closed in June.
Parkview Medical Center, now under Mid Coast Hospital’s license and carrying Joint Commission and “magnet hospital” status, “will be the epicenter” of primary care and outpatient services and community health and wellness programs. In coming months, several other outpatient services will move to the Parkview campus, according to Lois Skillings, president and CEO of Mid Coast Health Services.
Mid Coast purchased Parkview for $3.8 million in cash, according to Bob McCue, chief financial officer of MCHS. Skillings said those proceeds will be allocated by the bankruptcy court to Parkview’s creditors — the largest of being Central Maine Healthcare Corp., which has operated Parkview since 2008.
In addition to the cash sale, Mid Coast forgave $579,540 in advances to Parkview, paid the Adventist church $280,000 per year for five years to consult with the organization about how to provide faith-based services, assumed about $763,000 in paid time off obligations to employees and committed $1 million per year for three years in capital improvements to the new Parkview Medical Center campus.
Skillings said she hopes to engage an architect within weeks to develop a master plan for the Parkview campus.
CMHC, the parent organization of Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston that extended loans to Parkview and previously attempted to merge with the hospital, disputed the sale and expenditure amount before the court ruling Thursday.
CMHC wrote it was prepared to offer at least $6 million for the hospital and did offer $8 million, which would have included cash on top of $3.8 million it claims it holds in debt from Parkview.
Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Peter Cary denied MCHC’s initial request to purchase PAMC in a private sale as part of a “pre-packaged bankruptcy,” according to Randee Reynolds, former CEO and president of Parkview and now vice president of community health and integration at what will become Mid Coast-Parkview Health. Instead, Cary told officials from MCHC and CMHC to present their “best and highest” offers to the Parkview board Tuesday evening. During a meeting of all board members that evening, the board unanimously voted to accept the Mid Coast proposal, he said.
But Reynolds said the Parkview board already made that decision the Friday before at a regularly scheduled meeting of the board of directors.
The board unanimously chose the Mid Coast offer in part because MCHS offered to retain all employees, according to Reynolds, while the CMMC offer essentially said former Parkview employees would be given preferential consideration when jobs opened at CMMC.
“It wasn’t a guarantee,” he said.
“The advice and decision of the bankruptcy judge was that it was the highest and best use” to accept the Mid Coast Hospital bid, Skillings said. “The members of PAMC made the choice.”
An attorney for Mid Coast said during a court hearing Thursday that the board members considered in part a letter from Attorney General Janet Mills that stated Mid Coast’s offer was an “innovative plan both to preserve the charitable goals of the founders of Parkview Adventist Medical Center and to better serve the needs of the community by creating a single health care presence in the Brunswick area, instead of fostering the divided and costly competition that has existed over many years.”
“The judge saw the wisdom of allowing the board to decide,” Cundiff said.
Reynolds said Mid Coast’s commitment to ensuring the faith-based care continue and to offering jobs to all former Parkview employees helped sway the decision.
“We want to preserve that Adventist culture and value system, and Mid Coast has promised that will continue forward,” Cundiff said.
Skillings said no decision has been made about closing one of two walk-in clinics — one at Parkview Medical Center and one on Maine Street — but she said it would be impossible to run both clinics, 1½ miles from each other.
Barbara Reinertson, chairwoman of the Mid Coast Health Services board of directors, said Parkview has “pioneered” health and wellness in the area.
“Together, we are stronger,” Reinertson said. “We are poised to take the best possible care of the community — body, mind and spirit.”
“Parkview’s mission of holistic health care — mind, body and spirit — will continue,” Reynolds said, “We will continue to provide for the spiritual needs of our patients. Chaplains and volunteers will be available to all who would like those services. The campus will continue to provide the faith based aspects of the Adventist church.”
“Our prediction is this campus will become more active than it has ever been,” Cundiff said after the news conference.