Daytona Medical Malpractice Attorney

Judge approves agreement to return Bert Fish hospital to public control

DAYTONA BEACH -- An agreement to end Bert Fish Medical Center's yearlong merger with Adventist Health System received approval Friday from the circuit judge that ordered the partnership to end.

Friday's approval clears the way for the New Smyrna Beach hospital to return to public control, under the Southeast Volusia Hospital District board's oversight, on July 1. That's exactly one year after the partnership between the public hospital and the nonprofit health care giant became effective.

The court-ordered divorce inked Friday was the result of a lawsuit that was brought against the partnership. The suit was filed because the merger was the result of 21 meetings over 16 months that were closed to the public. Judge Richard Graham found those meetings violated the state Sunshine Law in a way that couldn't be cured.

The judge said he was satisfied after reading the 129-page agreement detailing how the deal would be voided with the least possible disruption at the hospital, which has 600 employees and 112 beds.

"I'm not going to tell you I understand all of it," Judge Graham said of the agreement. "But ... the order has been complied with fully."

Friday's 15-minute hearing at the City Island courthouse cleared the final hurdle and will return the hospital to the state it was in one year ago. But the next chapter for the public hospital has pressing questions for the seven-member hospital board, which includes five new members seated in the last month.

Among the questions are how millions of dollars in legal fees, related to the failed merger, will affect the district's ability to pay for indigent care at the hospital. And experts say they believe Bert Fish may need another partner to survive the market forces buffeting independent hospitals.

Financial realities have pushed more and more stand-alone hospitals to become part of a larger system. The situation is mirrored all over the country, as hospitals try to gain efficiencies that are realized when they can make larger orders for medicine and supplies, said Aaron Liberman, a professor of health services administration at the University of Central Florida.

"I don't think Bert Fish will continue on for long as an independent," Liberman predicted. "The market forces are too strong in the other direction."

Both of Bert Fish's spurned suitors in the partnership -- public Halifax Health and for-profit Health Management Associates -- have said they are still interested in being Bert Fish's partner. A representative for Adventist Health did not respond this week to a question of whether the Orlando-based nonprofit would make another partnership bid for Bert Fish.

Daytona Beach News - Medical Malpractice Insurance Quotes

EDGEWATER — A West Palm Beach counsel was selected Thursday to redeem what could be millions in indemnification to a Southeast Volusia Hospital District from a former lawyer’s inadequate authorised recommendation that resulted in a unsuccessful sanatorium partnership — and authorised bills that have already surfaced $1 million.

In a 4-2 vote, sanatorium district house members picked L. Louis Mrachek of a organisation Page Mrachek Trial Lawyers over a Jacksonville organisation and 4 Volusia County firms.

Mrachek, whose knowledge in authorised malpractice was cited in a decision, was selected after a unsuccessful suit to give a work to Ted Doran, a Volusia County School Board’s profession and former Ponce Inlet mayor.

“I was really tender with his presentation,” pronounced a Rev. John Marsh, an Edgewater sanatorium district house member who done a suit to sinecure Mrachek.

The Southeast Volusia Hospital District’s authorised woes started after it joined a sanatorium it oversees, open Bert Fish Medical Center, with nonprofit Adventist Health System final May 27.

The Bert Fish Foundation, a munificent classification that creatively built a sanatorium and gave it to a district, sued shortly after to blank a sale since a lease-sale agreement was reached during meetings illegally sealed to a public.

In a five-day hearing in circuit justice in February, a sanatorium district’s longtime counsel Jim Heekin certified on a mount it was his recommendation to tighten those partnership meetings and that a district could have a malpractice explain opposite him since of that advice.

Circuit Judge Richard Graham voided a sale on Feb. 24 and systematic a devise to lapse Bert Fish behind to a open ownership. The aim date is Jun 30.

Attorney Jon Kaney, representing a Bert Fish Foundation, pronounced he was blissful to hear of a board’s choice Thursday.

“I consider that Mrachek

View complete article: http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/local/southeast-volusia/2011/05/13/hospital-board-picks-firm-for-malpractice-suit-against-former-attorney.html

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