Credit: Steward/Adobe Stock
(WKBN) — In a prolonged ordeal, Steward Healthcare System is again extending a deadline to sell its hospitals after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on May 6.
Steward Health operates 31 hospitals in eight states, including Trumbull Regional Medical Center in Warren, Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital in Howland and Sharon Regional Medical Center.
A sale hearing scheduled for July 31 has been postponed until Aug. 13, according to documents filed Sunday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, where Steward Health is based. The deadline for filing a sufficiency assurance challenge and the deadline for filing a sale challenge have also been extended to Aug. 9.
The auction for the local venue was originally scheduled for June 27 but was postponed and then canceled on July 21 after no qualifying bids were received, according to court documents.
According to the law firm Goodwin Procter, sales hearings usually take place within three to 10 days of the auction, with objections due three to seven days in advance, but the lack of qualified bidders has delayed the entire legal process.
Steward Health may further postpone the sale hearing or other dates and deadlines pursuant to the bidding process, according to court documents.
In January, First News investigated the company after it was having trouble paying rent and mortgages, and just last week, a Senate committee authorized an investigation into Steward Health’s bankruptcy and voted to subpoena the company’s CEO, Dr. Ralph de la Torre.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, a member of the committee, said Dela Torre had become “fabulously wealthy” by saddled hospitals from Massachusetts to Arizona with billions of dollars of debt and selling the land beneath them to real estate developers who charged unsustainably high rents.
Steward Health Care said it plans to respond to the subpoena.
