HCH photos by Patrick Downes
Workers hang a temporary Hawaii Medical Center banner over the St. Francis Medical Center sign on Jan. 31.
Hawaii’s two Catholic hospitals are sold to a partnership of local doctors and a mainland company
By Patrick Downes | Hawaii Catholic Herald
It took place in the middle of the week, around 10:30 in the morning, with no one paying attention except for the workers and a supervisor or two. Four maintenance men climbed onto the roof extension over the entranceway of the former St. Francis Hospital in Liliha and lowered a 70-foot long vinyl banner over the dark brown letters and symbols that for so long had identified the building as Hawaii’s first Catholic hospital.
The new temporary sign — bright white with blue and red corporate logos and blue block lettering — spelled out the reality that had taken place in executive offices and meeting rooms several weeks earlier. St. Francis Medical Center, and its sister facility with the same name in west Oahu, have been sold.
If the sign-hanging seemed unremarkable and went unnoticed, what it symbolized was historic. For the first time in 80 years, Hawaii no longer has a Catholic hospital. The Franciscan legacy of the universally acclaimed Blessed Marianne Cope has been replaced by the “Hawaii Medical Center.”
The transfer of ownership of the two St. Francis Hospitals to Hawaii Medical Center LLC, an alliance of local physicians and a mainland company, is no surprise. The complicated negotiations and approval process to seal the deal had dragged on for more than a year after the Sisters of St. Francis announced their intention to exit acute care and chart a different course of health ministry in Hawaii.
The closing of the sale took place in Honolulu on Jan. 14. The ceremony marking the transfer was held at the Liliha medical center on Jan. 18. The sign hanging, two weeks later on Jan. 31, was merely a matter of maintenance.
Changing ownership were St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii’s two flagships, the medical center in Liliha and St. Francis Medical Center-West.
Founded in 1927, the former St. Francis Medical Center in Liliha listed 188 acute care beds and 52 skilled nursing long-term beds. It is the seventh largest hospital in Hawaii.
The former St. Francis-West was opened in 1990. With 100 acute care beds, it is Hawaii’s 12th largest acute care facility.
The hospitals are renamed Hawaii Medical Center East and Hawaii Medical Center West.
Hawaii Medical Center is a partnership of Cardiovascular Hospitals of America (CHA), a Kansas-based hospital management company, and Hawaii Physician Group LLC, an organization of more than 130 Hawaii-based doctors.
The medical centers are now Hawaii’s only physician-owned hospitals and for-profit hospitals.
“This transition marks the beginning of a new and important era for these hospitals,” said Dr. Badr Idbeis, chief executive officer of CHA and chairman of Hawaii Medical Center in a news release. “Building on their rich tradition of service to Hawaii’s people, we will now invest substantial resources to transform them into state-of-the art medical facilities.”
According to the release, Hawaii Medical Center will “significantly augment and upgrade facility staffing, equipment, and infrastructure at the two medical centers, while keeping the broad range of services offered.”
Dr. Danelo Canete, chief executive officer of Hawaii Physicians Group, will lead the medical center’s new management team.
“I am confident that the new owners of the two medical centers and the employees who have been so hard-working and dedicated will continue the long tradition of providing quality, compassionate care for patients regardless of their ability to pay,” said Sister Agnelle Ching, OSF, chief executive officer of St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii. “We wish them much success.”
The new era is not a total break from the past. The Franciscan legacy will live on in the two hospital chapels the sisters will continue to run, the Catholic chaplains, and the Catholic healthcare ethical directives that remain in place as a condition of the sale.
The Sisters of St. Francis will also have a seat on Hawaii Medical Center’s board of managers.
The Sisters of St. Francis have not left health care, just the acute, urgent, surgical and emergency side of it. In doing so, they close the chapter on a proud inventory of accomplishments and advances at the St. Francis Medical Centers — organ transplants, revolutions in renal care and surgical breakthroughs. (See timeline below.)
They are now lengthening their strides in a direction they have always excelled in — long-term care for the elderly, ill and dying. As pioneers of hospice and home care in Hawaii, they continue to lead the way and break new ground down that road.
Among St. Francis Healthcare System’s remaining subsidiaries are its hospice programs, home care services, a residential care community being built in Ewa, and Our Lady of Keaau, a community for the poor and homeless on Oahu’s Waianae coast. St. Francis is also planning a hospice in east Honolulu.