State officials remain tight-lipped about potentially intervening on a sale of the University of Toledo Medical Center, even after U.S. Rep Marcy Kaptur penned a letter to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine asking that he halt the school’s acquisition talks during the coronavirus pandemic.
The governor has received Miss Kaptur’s letter, spokesman Dan Tierney confirmed Monday, but his office is consulting with the Ohio Department of Higher Education before it responds, he added.
“This is something that the administration has engaged on specifically with chancellor [Randy] Gardner of the department of higher education,” Mr. Tierney said. “But we’ve received the letter, and we will certainly respond in time.”
Mr. Tierney could not say specifically when that response might be. In the letter sent on Saturday, Miss Kaptur urged Mr. DeWine to become involved with the situation, which she says “demands careful evaluation of alternatives for the future of UTMC and its Health Science campus without the stress of the current health crisis bearing down.”
The letter followed news that UT’s Board of Trustees has sought requests for proposals to purchase, lease, or manage the school’s medical center, the former Medical College of Ohio Hospital. The board announced the decision last week at its finance and audit committee meeting, citing $14.8 million in financial losses through February of the fiscal year as reason to move forward with a process that could lead to an acquisition. Miss Kaptur called the move “a most disconcerting, harmful, and an untimely development,” as the nation grapples with the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr. Gardner was not made available to take questions Monday but, in a prepared statement, said his department continues to “listen to concerns and monitor developments,” about UTMC.
“Congresswoman Kaptur called me several days ago to discuss this issue, and we continue to communicate with the UTMC citizens group and University of Toledo officials,” Mr. Gardner said.
On Monday, UT President Sharon Gaber wrote a letter to Miss Kaptur to “clarify” a few of her points in her note to Governor DeWine and to thank her for her interest in UTMC. In her letter, Ms. Gaber discussed the dire financial situation of the hospital as unsustainable.
“UTMC is an auxiliary operation of the university,” she wrote. “As such it is meant to be self-supporting. The hospital receives no state or federal funding for operations like the university’s academic enterprise.”
Regarding Miss Kaptur’s suggestion that the state use funds it receives from the Trump Administration’s Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, Ms. Gaber said the CARES Act would only provide “one-time dollars” and not “ongoing dollars.”
“CARES Act dollars are appreciated and helpful; however, do not resolve an ongoing operational deficit,” she wrote. “As reported at our board meeting, the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating the budget issues. We have been losing nearly $1 million per week during this pandemic.”
Ms. Gaber said as the fiscal year approaches in June, the school knows it cannot continue to cover losses of UTMC “at the expense of the state-funded academic enterprise –– The University of Toledo.”
“The process was structured so that any, and all, interested entities can participate,” she wrote. “If the city, county, state or a federal agency would like to own and operate UTMC, we invite them to submit a proposal. We recognize that this asset is important to the people of South Toledo and hope to find a resolution, but as a public university we must remain focused on our primary mission to educate students and advance knowledge through research.”
In response to the letter from Ms. Gaber, Miss Kaptur said UTMC needed a “financial bridge” to get through the pandemic, which she suggested could come in the form of federal funds. She also said university officials should be pushing for innovation in developing testing kits or potential vaccines for the virus.
Selling the hospital in the middle of a pandemic, Miss Kaptur said, is a bad idea and would be detrimental to the entire northwest Ohio region, including southern Michigan.
“There’s a lot at stake here,” she said.
Many people have dedicated their lives to establishing a medical campus at UT, Miss Kaptur said, and “one doesn’t walk away from that easily.”
“I think this is a really good time to take a look at where we’ve been, where we are, and where we need to be going,” she said. “We need subsidies now for the bridge, but, for the future, we need a plan.”
Former Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner and other members of the Save UTMC Citizens Group, including state Sen. Teresa Fedor (D., Toledo), have been flagging Mr. DeWine’s administration about the potential for a sale of UTMC since February, the same month UT officials first conceded the school was “considering all options” for its medical center due to major financial shortfalls. The group has repeatedly pushed for Mr. DeWine to jump in and fend off talks of selling UTMC, which is just one of two state-owned hospitals; the other is Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University. The group also has asked the governor to look into a 2015 academic affiliation between ProMedica and UT’s College of Medicine and Life Sciences, which they say has in turn gutted the school’s medical center, a hospital that has served South Toledo since 1964.
“This is not a private institution, this is a public institution,” Senator Fedor said last week at a press conference following the trustees meeting. “And I want those board of trustees to hear me straight. We are going directly to the governor to ask for his help and assistance.”
Mr. Tierney confirmed Monday that Mr. DeWine’s office has been aware of the situation long before the pandemic took up a majority of his time and focus but didn’t say if the governor would take any action.
“We were aware of this issue previously,” Mr. Tierney said. “Obviously the governor’s primary focus is on COVID-19, but this is something the administration has been working on for several weeks.”
Mr. Tierney did, however, say the governor’s power in these matters is his authority in appointing boards of trustees and his ability to influence their decision-making.
“That’s the greatest influence,” he said, adding, “obviously there’s some stuff that can be done under existing statutes.”
UT spokesman Meghan Cunningham on Saturday said RFP’s were posted publicly last week and have a June 10 deadline.
First Published April 20, 2020, 9:49 p.m.
