Officials focus on splitting hospital costs

Members appointed to oversight group; One month left to negotiate funding

At the conference, O’Malley announced four state appointees to the independent Hospital Authority, established by the General Assembly this year. Three county appointees had been selected June 6.

The seven-member panel will solicit bids from health care companies to take over the system. The panel is to present a plan for the General Assembly to consider during the 2009 legislative session.

The announcement is the biggest step to date toward charting the future of the system, which has struggled since 1997. Managed by Dimensions Healthcare Corp., hospitals in Cheverly, Bowie and Laurel treat 180,000 patients a year. Because about 25 percent of patients are uninsured, the system loses about $12 million a year.

Under the General Assembly plan, the state and Prince George’s County will each pay $24 million over the next two years to keep the system running. The authority now has 60 days to reach a long-term public funding agreement for the system. There is an option for a 30-day extension.

The state appointees to the authority are Andrea Leahy Fuchek, an administrative lawyer who has worked for the state and county; Karen Johnson Shaheed, legal counsel for Bowie State University; and Dr. Joseph Wright, a pediatrician who runs a Washington, D.C.-based center that advocates for child health care.

Dr. Donald E. Wilson, former dean of the University of Maryland

School of Medicine who directs the school’s Program in Minority Health and Health Disparities Education and Research, is a joint appointment by Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. and House Speaker Michael E. Busch.

On June 6, the county named its three members of the authority: Kenneth Glover, a PNC Bank executive and former chief administrative officer for former County Executive Wayne K. Curry; Thomas Himler, former budget director for Prince George’s County; and Stanley Brown, a zoning lawyer for the county.

O’Malley appointed Glover the chairman of the panel and Wilson the vice chairman.

Previous deals to save the health centers stalled after the county and state failed to reach agreements on land and ownership.

This year’s legislation requires county and state negotiators to agree by Aug. 20 on how much each is willing to pay to make the hospital more attractive to a new buyer.

Recent hospital reports state that the county hospitals have more than $200 million in debt, and county officials have said the hospitals likely need at least that much in new buildings and medical equipment.

‘‘It’s going to take a huge investment of money, both at the state level and local level,” said House of Delegates Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Dist. 30) of Annapolis.

County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D) said the county has given the hospital system more than $60 million in the last six years.

‘‘It’s been really one of the most difficult and challenging areas we have focused on,” Johnson said.

The two representatives for the county and state in the negotiations, Deputy County Administrator Iris Boswell and Peggy Watson, deputy chief of staff for O’Malley, said Friday they had nothing new to report from their talks. Both women were named May 30 as representatives.

Members have not set a date for the authority’s first meeting, state officials said. Under the agreement, the group will have until January to find a buyer, and the General Assembly will need to approve the deal. If that happens, the new company would take over the system in 2010.

A crowd of doctors, nurses and hospital administrators came out to watch the news conference at the medical center.

Lawmakers thanked the workers for staying through the years of disputes and financial uncertainty.

‘‘Even if you may have thought we were not working to provide quality health-care services to our citizens, we were,” County Council Chairman Samuel H. Dean (D-Dist 6) of Mitchellville told the crowd.

Longtime observers said politicians have greater pressure to succeed.

‘‘They’ve got no choice. It’s get it done or fail. There’s not much in between,” said G. Fred Robinson, mayor of Bowie, the site of the system’s Bowie Health Campus. ‘‘But I am much more optimistic now than I have been in the past.”