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Bat-infested hospital acquired from bankrupt Steward shuts down. The owner of a Florida hospital recently acquired from bankrupt Steward Health Care System said the troubled facility will now shut down.
Orlando Health, the private nonprofit hospital operator that acquired Rockledge Regional Medical Center out of bankruptcy from Steward last year, on Thursday said the hospital facility and its outpatient departments will close in April after it determined that needed repairs and renovations would cost more than building a new hospital.
Orlando Health, which acquired two other facilities in the state from Steward—the Melbourne and Sebastian River hospitals—said it was aware of the poor conditions at Rockledge before it took over, but decided to shut it following an in-depth inspection of the facility that could only be done after its purchase closed.
The struggles of Steward, the biggest hospital system to file for bankruptcy in decades, drew attention to the role of Medical Properties Trust, a publicly listed real estate investment trust that bought hospital buildings, often from Steward itself, and leased them back to the operators.
Many Steward hospitals suffered from shortages of equipment and supplies because of delays in vendor payments and an exodus of medical staff well before the company filed for bankruptcy.
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