Supporters and employees of Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital have reason to be optimistic that the hospital will stay open despite being put up for sale — for the second time — by Tenet Healthcare Corporation.

Tenet is rejecting purchase offers from entities wishing to acquire any of its 27 for-sale hospitals unless the hospitals will be kept intact as acute-care facilities, according to David Langness, a Tenet spokesman.

Tenet is selling 19 hospitals in California — including the Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital on Lincoln Boulevard — in addition to eight hospitals in other states, after financial setbacks forced the firm to scale back its operations.

"We have had interest [in the hospitals] from multiple buyers, and most of that interest is in the California hospitals," Langness said. "We have had inquiries from persons interested in acquiring the Marina hospital as real estate, and we won't send them information packets.

"We are not entertaining offers from non-hospital buyers."

Tenet plans to divest itself of the hospitals by the end of the year.

Tenet officials say that California's requirements for seismic retrofitting of all hospitals — which must be in place by 2008 — make the California facilities too expensive to operate.

LOCAL GROUP MAKES BID — As the divestiture process unfolds, the local community activist group that spearheaded the drive to keep Tenet from closing the Marina hospital in August 2002 is making a bid to purchase the hospital and operate it as a nonprofit business entity.

Julie Inouye, chairwoman of the board of We CAHRE [Community Action for Healthcare Reform and Education], wrote a letter Wednesday, February 11th, notifying Tenet California of the group's interest in "potential acquisition" of the hospital and seeking further information.

"This letter is to advise you that We CAHRE, a soon-to-be- designated nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, is interested in potentially acquiring the Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital to assure that it will continue to be available to meet the health needs of the communities it serves," Inouye wrote.

Inouye says that We CAHRE and another local group, SOMH [Save Our Marina Hospital] have been working for months to put together a plan to acquire and operate the hospital.

EMPLOYEES ‘HOPEFUL' — Cyndee Woelfle, a spokeswoman for the Marina hospital, said employees at the facility are hopeful they will eventually be under new management that will move the hospital forward after years of uncertainty.

Tenet California chief executive officer Dr. Steve Newman said recently that the company intends to put a priority on finding new operators for all the hospitals that are up for sale.

Newman further said that if new operators cannot be found, Tenet will work with community groups to keep the hospitals open, Woelfle said.

IMPROVED FACILITY — Woelfle says the Marina hospital is a more attractive prospect for a buyer now than when Tenet purchased the facility in December 2001 from the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, who had lost millions operating the facility.

"This facility is in better condition now than when it was purchased [by Tenet]," Woelfle said. "We have new OR [operating room] equipment, and we are halfway through a $1 million roof replacement. We are continuing forward with improvements."

Hospital employees are optimistic that a new owner could prove even more beneficial, by allowing the hospital to obtain managed care contracts that it has not been able to obtain under Tenet.

"We feel that getting purchased by another organization with capital and important managed care contracts would bring more people here," Woelfle said.

She says that Blue Shield, for example, cannot assign patients to the Marina facility because Tenet has not negotiated a contract with Blue Shield for the Marina hospital, as it has for other Tenet-owned hospitals.

"Tenet realizes the community could be better served with another owner," Woelfle said. "Our message to the community is that we don't intend to close. We are here to serve the community and need their support more than ever."

‘NOT DYING ON THE VINE' — Woelfle says the Marina hospital is operating normally, despite the impending sale.

"This hospital has been through a lot and the community strongly backs having a hospital here," she said. "We know there is a demand for our service.

"We are up and running full speed ahead, with a full staff and surgeries every day.

"New physicians are joining every day, and leasing space in our medical office building. There is growth and interest in this hospital.

"We are not dying on the vine."