Tenet Healthcare Corp. is walking away from its Connecticut hospital purchase plans after it failed to reach an agreement with the state that would have allowed the publicly traded chain to expand there.
The Dallas-based system had been trying to close four deals dating back as far as late 2012. In the process, Tenet was attempting to forge new territory in a state that has not been particularly open to for-profit hospital operators.
“Unfortunately, the issues that separated us simply could not be overcome,” Gov. Dannel Malloy said in a joint press release with Tenet. The two sides announced late Wednesday that they could not reach an agreement and talks were ending.
Waterbury (Conn.) Hospital was the first battleground. The attorney general and the state Office of Health Care Access seemed to support the takeover but placed numerous conditions on the transaction that ultimately led Tenet to withdraw all four of its applications in December.
Malloy, who supported the deals, had hoped to reopen talks with Tenet and bring the chain back to the bargaining table, but that process proved unfruitful.
“We will continue to work with the hospitals, the affected communities and our colleagues in the legislature to come up with smart, creative solutions that will preserve local access to care for all patients,” Malloy said.
In addition to Waterbury Hospital, Tenet had sought to buy Bristol (Conn.) Hospital; the two-hospital Eastern Connecticut Health Network, with campuses in Manchester and Rockville; and St. Mary's Hospital, also in Waterbury.
Tenet tried to execute deals that first had been signed by Vanguard Health Systems, which Tenet acquired in late 2013. Last March, Tenet brought Yale New Haven (Conn.) Health System on board with the idea that the academic medical center could offer its clinical expertise to the community hospitals, in return for a minority stake.
Tenet still owns two Vanguard hospitals in Massachusetts: MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham and St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester.
Follow Beth Kutscher on Twitter: @MHbkutscher
