Group Buys Minority Stake in Gaffney Hospital Group
By Janet S. Spencer, Herald-Journal, Spartanburg, S.C.
Apr. 3–GAFFNEY — A 27 percent minority interest in seven hospitals owned by Health Management Associates Inc., including Upstate Carolina Medical Center, has been sold to an affiliate of Novant Health for $300 million, an HMA representative said Wednesday.
“We are pleased and excited to establish this partnership with Novant Health, and I am certain that it will be a win-win relationship for all of our North and South Carolina hospitals,” John Merriwether, vice president of financial relations for HMA, said in a statement.
HMA and Novant will share governing responsibilities, and HMA will continue to manage the hospitals.
“Novant is nationally recognized for delivering high-quality and innovative health care with an unmatched commitment to service quality,” Merriwether said. “This partnership will reinforce the mission at Upstate Carolina Medical Center and help us raise the level of quality services being delivered, enhance our physician recruitment and improve access to services for our patients in the region.”
He referred questions about recent layoffs of personnel (fewer than two dozen total) at Upstate Carolina Medical Center to Administrator Joe Howell, whose office said he was unavailable for comment Wednesday.
But Merriwether said there was no downsizing anticipated at the Gaffney hospital or any of the joint venture hospitals as a result of the transaction that was finalized on Monday.
Over a four-month transition period, Novant will assume ownership and operation of the hospitals’ physician practices, which HMA will subsidize partially for the first three years, if necessary, the HMA statement said.
Novant is a not-for-profit group of hospitals and physician clinics. Novant includes nine hospitals, an 830-physican medical group, two nursing homes and 130 outpatient facilities.
HMA owns and operates 58 hospitals with about 8,300 licensed beds in non-urban communities throughout the United States.
Other hospitals in the seven-member group affected include facilities in Statesville, Mooresville, Louisburg and Hamlet in North Carolina and Chester and Hartsville in South Carolina.
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