Daniel Freeman Hospitals to Be Sold

Tenet Healthcare Corp. announced Friday that it has signed a agreement to buy Daniel Freeman Hospitals, the Roman Catholic not-for-profit medical centers in Inglewood and Marina del Rey, for $55 million. The sale would change the hospitals’ status to for-profit institutions.

Tenet’s potential purchase is opposed by a group of its doctors who want to buy the hospitals themselves. But the agreement is a relief for hospital administrators who have watched Daniel Freeman Hospitals steadily lose money for the last three years.

“It is a passing,” said Daniel Freeman interim Chief Executive Cathy Fickes. “A tremendous sadness that something that was known and familiar will change, but excitement that we will be maintaining the organization and growing the services for the community.”

Tenet Healthcare already owns 30 hospitals in Southern California, including Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood. Some community residents feared the company might close or reduce Freeman’s Inglewood operations to avoid duplication of Centinela services.

Tenet spokesman Harry Anderson said there is no intention of closing Freeman’s Inglewood emergency room but added, “We are not necessarily promising that all services will remain exactly the same at all campuses.” Tenet has vowed to keep up Daniel Freeman’s charitable care for the indigent.

Purchases of not-for-profit hospitals by for-profit companies and the use of the proceeds must be reviewed by the state attorney general. Anderson said that most of the sale proceeds would be used to pay off the hospitals’ debts.

The hospitals are owned by the Carondelet Health System of St. Louis, which is affiliated with an order of Roman Catholic nuns.

The purchase by Tenet is opposed by a group of Freeman doctors who joined forces with MedSECTOR, a finance and real estate consultant, to bid on the hospitals to keep them nonprofit.

MedSECTOR asked for more time to come up with the funds to make its bid, but the hospital chose to go with Tenet. MedSECTOR executive Garth Hogan said the group still will submit a bid within the next couple of weeks, prior to the sale going to the state attorney general for approval.