Is Lower Bucks Hospital being sold? What we know

Prime Healthcare Services Inc. might be putting three Philadelphia-area hospitals up for sale, including Lower Bucks Hospital in Bristol Township.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Tuesday that it obtained a notice from a Los Angeles investment bank interested in buying three acute-care hospitals currently under one owner and averaging about 136 beds.

Although the notice doesn’t name any hospitals or owners, the Inquirer reported that the description fits Prime, which also owns the Roxborough Memorial Hospital in Philadelphia and Mercy Suburban Hospital in Norristown.

The notice claimed that the hospitals are losing money and that the seller “believes conversion to behavioral health is a viable alternative,” according to the Inquirer.

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Prime, which owns 44 hospitals and 300 outpatient facilities across 14 states, bought Lower Bucks Hospital in October 2012, not long after the hospital had climbed out of a two-year bankruptcy.

Prime spokesperson Elizabeth Nikels said Wednesday that the company could not comment on the rumored sale.

“Prime Healthcare’s mission is to always do what’s best for our communities and patients, however, we do not comment on strategic merger and acquisition initiatives,” Nickels wrote in an email.

The news of the potential sale comes just days before nurses are expected to begin a five-day strike on Friday after months of unsuccessful contract negotiations between Prime and the nurses’ union, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP).

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Megan Gorman, PASNAP spokesperson, said the union hoped lawmakers intervene if the sale would mean closing the hospitals in favor of behavioral health facilities.

“We believe it's incredibly important that Lower Bucks Hospital — as well as the other two Prime Healthcare-owned hospitals in the greater Philadelphia area — remain critical care hospitals for the health and well-being of their patient communities,” Gorman said.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Prime Healthcare possibly selling Lower Bucks Hospital, two others