Clock ticking on deal to save hospital

O’Malley pledged to commit $20 million in state funds in the 2008 budget to keep the hospital’s doors open, a down payment on a larger commitment of $176.7 million over the next eight years to redevelop the county-owned hospital system into a “world-class health care institution” governed by an independent board.

The offer depended on the Legislature’s approval of the independent authority. Without that independent board, O’Malley said, the $20 million would be used instead to close the hospital — including Laurel Regional Hospital, the Bowie Health Campus and the Gladys Spellman Specialty Hospital and Nursing Center — within the next three months.

“We have four days left to save this hospital,” O’Malley said Thursday during a news conference in the Governor’s Reception Room at the State House in Annapolis.

If the Prince George’s Hospital system were forced to close, state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Secretary John Colmers said the action “would have a ripple effect throughout the region,” especially on trauma centers and already overcrowded emergency rooms. But Colmers said state officials have already begun preparing for that possibility.

O’Malley said the state would pick up 44 percent of the estimated $404 million needed over the next eight years to transition the hospital out of county ownership. The governor’s plan would require Prince George’s County officials to come up with the other 56 percent of the cost, or $227.7 million.

“The proposal we’re advancing leaves it up to Prince George’s whether their share comes from a tax or a surcharge or the liquidation of assets,” O’Malley said. “We’re not making that part of the proposal.”

A House of Delegates plan to raise county property taxes to pay off the hospital’s debt upset several county officials and state lawmakers in light of already high tax rates.

stracy@baltimoreexaminer.com