The seemingly never-ending saga of Natchez Regional Medical Center continues to get a little stranger.

You may recall we are approximately a year into the latest plan to sell the hospital and several months into the hospital’s second bankruptcy in five years.

The entire process is mired in secrecy and special exceptions to seemingly normal procedures.

A regular sales process would call for a routine auction, but the high-paid expert hired to facilitate the sale said, “No.”

Instead, he and a select few others sought permission to use a so-called stalking horse bid process. Ostensibly the reason was to help mandate the best sales price by allowing the hospital to negotiate a bid that would effectively be the lowest bid.

Special requirements were set for stalking horse bidders, effectively to exclude the owners of cross-town rival Natchez Community Hospital.

Months pass and no bidders materialized. Then the exclusions are removed.

Still, no pile of bidders seems to come forth.

All the while the hospital is presumably burning through cash while the spinmeisters keep promising a sale is imminent.

Earlier this year, those promises turned to a plan to file bankruptcy.

Soon after, the public learned an agreement was nearly finished to sell the hospital to Natchez Community Hospital’s owners.

That deal is apparently a combination of cash and a rather interesting plan to use prepaid property tax to help fund the remainder of the deal.

The only problem is such prepayment of taxes isn’t a normal structure.

It’s something “creative” that’s been dreamt up to allow Community Health Systems — apparently the only interested possible buyer remaining — to get a sweet deal on the hospital.

The purported deal calls for CHS to effectively write a check for $10 million and then be allowed to prepay the property taxes up to $8 million.

The combined $18 million consideration would pay off the hospital’s debts and effectively let the county walk away from long-term liability for the hospital.

That’s not exactly how the hospital sales effort was originally pitched. It was originally a way for the county to earn some money and ultimately consolidate healthcare efforts in the area. One out of two isn’t bad, though.

Ultimately at this point the hospital appears to have been so horribly mismanaged by the former CEO, current CFO and others that it’s a bit like a wounded animal, Perhaps it’s best for the long-term facility to be put out of its misery at any cost? That’s a tough thing to swallow, particularly if you’re convinced poor management, not government regulation, killed the hospital’s profitability.

If Natchez Regional ultimately sells to CHS, it will be a sad day for some of the hard-working hospital employees who almost certainly will be cut as the hospitals merge and consolidate services.

The purchase may be spun as an economic development project for the sake of getting the Mississippi Development Authority to approve the tax prepayment deal. But anyone with sense can see the merger will cut jobs, not develop more.

To call that an economic development project makes about as much sense as any of the rest of the crazy process by the hospital’s pitchmen.

 

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.