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Group wants to stop Hillside sale
Forum trustees were to discuss the possible sale of Hillside.
WARREN — Members of the Concerned Citizens of Trumbull County are considering seeking a court injunction to stop the sale of Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital if Forum Health puts the Howland facility on the block.
The Forum Board of Trustees was expected to discuss the possible sale of Hillside on Tuesday night, according to Forum spokeswoman Trish Hrina.
The Concerned Citizens, an alliance of community, business and labor leaders, has also pledged to mount a “grass-roots campaign” to stop the sale.
The Concerned Citizens’ comments came in response to reports the company’s board was to vote Tuesday to approve a “letter of intent” with nursing home operator John DiPizzo, which would allow him to inspect the facility and offer a bid for its purchase.
Hrina would not confirm that information. She did say once a decision is reached, there will be no communication with the media until after Forum Health leadership has an opportunity to speak with the staff of Hillside — employees and physicians.
The citizens group believes selling Hillside is unnecessary and could lead to closure of the hospital and, with it, the loss of comprehensive rehabilitation services for much of Northeast Ohio, said Deborah Bindas, a staff representative for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union. AFSCME represents most of the employees at Hillside, she said.
“Once Hillside is sold to a for-profit company, our community loses any say in deciding what its future will be,” said Gus Polychronis, owner of Thermolance Co. of Warren, and a spokesman for the Concerned Citizens group.
“The bottom line is that corporations are in business to make money. The present Hillside status is nonprofit. It allows local control of the hospital and its profits,” Polychronis added.
Forum’s management has conceded the motivation for selling Hillside is to generate funds needed to make payments on an unsecured debt now estimated at $112 million. An expert study authorized by the Ohio attorney general, however, urged Forum to consider consolidating some of the services at the two other hospitals it operates: Trumbull Memorial Hospital and Northside Medical Center, Bindas said.
She said AFSCME union members “are ready to roll up our sleeves and work with Forum to keep Hillside from being sold off, but the company has made it clear that their priority is cash flow, not patient care.”
Bindas, a licensed practical nurse who worked 23 years at the hospital, noted the union had accepted contract concessions to help reduce Hillside’s operating costs.
“Hillside has always been about the patients, not the profits. The community has invested in Hillside through charitable contributions, and the taxpayers of this community built Hillside. The hospital offers specialty services that are not duplicated anywhere in this part of Ohio. Forum’s direction is simply wrong for our community,” Bindas said.
Polychronis said that the Forum Board of Trustees is not as transparent as it should be and that he has tried for some time to get a copy of the original 1997 agreement that merged the Trumbull County hospitals, Trumbull Memorial and Hillside, with Mahoning County’s Western Reserve Health System. He believes the merger agreement has an escape or dissolution provision and wants to see what it says.
The Trumbull citizens group would like to see TMH and Hillside, both of which are profitable, split from Northside Medical Center in Youngstown, which is all that is left of Forum in Mahoning County, and which the company says is not profitable.
“We asked Forum if the merger agreement exists and were told no. Then we asked the attorney general’s office if it has a copy. We were told it exists but by law the group cannot see it,” Polychronis said.
“All we want is the truth” about the merger agreement. “We’ll abide by it. What’s the big secret,” he said.
“I understand a court injunction is a possibility if Forum moves to sell Hillside. We have to wait to see what the trustees do. That will dictate what we do. I think the proper venue to settle this is in court,” Polychronis said.
alcorn@vindy.com