The Southeast Volusia Hospital District board of commissioners voted to revisit whether Florida's Bert Fish Medical Center should remain independent or join up with a large hospital system, the Orlando Sentinel reports.
In what looks like a case of one step forward and two steps back, the board will have to start from scratch with a public meeting on Sept. 27. The board made this decision last Thursday, several months after its June 30 vote to have New Smyrna Beach-based Bert Fish merge with Florida Hospital in a $51 million agreement, according to the Orlando Business Journal.
That initial agreement to have Bert Fish operated by Florida Hospital, effective July 1, came under fire recently, when allegations that the merger transactions violated the state's Sunshine Law surfaced. Meetings that should have been public weren't.
The lawsuit charges that the board violated the law by conducting 21 closed-door merger meetings over the course of 16 months. Under the state sunshine law, which requires public disclosure of how tax dollars are spent, the meetings should have been open to the public.
The Bert Fish Foundation Inc. filed the suit last month against Winter Park-based Adventist Health System, which is the parent company of Florida Hospital, Bert Fish Medical Center and the Southeast Volusia Hospital District, the Orlando Business Journal reports.
If the commissioners vote to partner with another system, they will invite all companies that submitted proposals earlier to return. Other systems that expressed interested earlier include Halifax Health, Health Management Associates Inc. and HCA Inc., the Business Journal reports.
To learn more:
- read the Orlando Sentinel article
- see the Orlando Business Journal article
- read the Daytona Beach News-Journal's earlier article and later article