The clock is now ticking on the tightly scheduled timeline set up by lawmakers to save the Prince George’s County hospital system after Gov. Martin O’Malley signed the hospital bill Thursday.
The county has been struggling to right the sinking hospital for the last several years. Studies of the system have pointed to operator Dimensions Healthcare as playing a key role in mismanaging funds and driving the hospitals toward bankruptcy. If every step of the timeline is followed, a new hospital owner will be in the works by early next year.
This latest plan, one of several that have either failed before getting off the ground or failed to turn the ailing system around, has the state playing a key role in overseeing the process.
The “collaboration represents a new day for county residents and for the future of a health care system whose vitality is critical for our entire state,” O’Malley said.
Officials with the hospital workers union have said the state’s involvement is key to keeping the negotiations above the table and out of the political mire that’s stalled previous plans.
However, there’s still opportunity for politicians to muck up the process, Ebs Burnough, the political director for the hospital workers union, said Thursday.
“Appointments could not be made. Future deadlines could not be met,” Burnough said.
Within the next 10 days, the county and the governor are required to pick negotiators who will determine how much each entity is willing to spend to bring in a new buyer. Twenty days later, the county and the governor will have to pick three people each to join one person selected by the House speaker and the Senate president as the “hospital authority,” which will design the bidding process.
The timeline keeps a rigid pace from there, but the whole thing could quickly unravel if the two negotiators can’t agree on spending within 90 days. In that situation, not only will there be no long-term plan in place, there won’t even be one for the short term, and lawmakers will be back to square one.
