Dignity Health-Catholic Healthcare Initiatives Deal Approved With Conditions By California Regulators
Over the public comment period, concerns were raised about job security, hospital closures and Catholic views on reproductive services, but regulators are giving the green light to the merger. The conditions that were part of the approval process require the combined company to maintain emergency services and women’s health care services for 10 years.
Ventura County Star:
State OKs Dignity Health Merger Involving St. John's Hospitals
The California Department of Justice on Wednesday conditionally approved a merger agreement between Dignity Health and Colorado-based Catholic Healthcare Initiatives. Dignity Health, which operates 39 hospitals, including St. John’s Regional Medical Center hospitals in Oxnard and St. John’s Pleasant Valley Hospital Camarillo, will merge with the 101-hospital Catholic Health Initiatives system. The merger will create what is believed to be the nation’s largest nonprofit hospital group. (D'Angelo, 11/21)
Sacramento Bee:
California Attorney General Approves Merger Of Dignity, CHI But Sets Conditions
Anthony Wright and other consumer advocates at Health Access California said they were pleased that the AG”s 351-page decision was requiring [the hospitals] to maintain emergency services and women’s healthcare services for 10 years, but there were areas such as LGBTQ protections where they felt the AG could have been more forceful. (Anderson, 11/21)
In other hospital news —
The San Diego Union-Tribune:
Alvarado Hospital Opens New 30-Bed Geriatric Psych Unit
At a time when many hospitals across the nation are cutting mental heath beds, Alvarado Hospital Medical Center is expanding its offerings, recently turning a full wing at its La Mesa complex into a 30-bed behavioral health unit set up to serve patients age 65 and older. At a cost of nearly $3 million, the project took more than a year to complete and complies with new federal guidelines designed to remove features that patients could use to harm themselves. (Sisson, 11/23)