Five months ago, the owner of West Suburban Medical Center closed the safety-net hospital because it was running out of cash.
He vowed the hospital would reopen this summer, by July at the latest.
But not only has West Suburban remained closed, the owner, Resilience Healthcare CEO Manoj Prasad, is now allegedly moving equipment out of the hospital. Meanwhile, the legal battle for control of the hospital and its sister, Weiss Memorial Hospital, drags on as lawyers continued arguing in court Tuesday over a proposed settlement agreement.
Prasad and the hospital’s landlord, Rathnakar Reddy Patlola, have been fighting for months before Cook County Circuit Judge Patrick Stanton.
The settlement agreement was finalized in late May after hours of negotiating before Stanton, according to Patlola’s legal team.
Under the deal, West Suburban Medical Center and Weiss Memorial Hospital would be sold for $1 to Insight Health Systems. Prasad would step down as CEO and take on a temporary consulting position for $100,000.
But since then, Prasad’s lawyers who worked on the settlement left the case. His new lawyers are now resisting signing the settlement and claiming Prasad never fully agreed to all the terms of the deal.
Scott Kaplan, an attorney for Patlola, said Prasad and his team have not been willing to negotiate. Kaplan has filed a motion asking Stanton to enforce the settlement, saying the deal is binding.
Stanton, who has grown increasingly fed up with both sides of the legal fight, pushed Prasad’s lawyer, Howard Brookins, on Tuesday to explain what about the settlement his client isn’t happy with.
Brookins, who has said several times in court he has not read the settlement agreement, struggled to name a specific issue with the deal. Instead, he said he’s concerned about enforcing the agreement and making sure Insight lives up to its side of the deal if the company takes control of the hospital. At one point during Tuesday’s hearing, Brookins asked for a hearing to hash out a new settlement agreement.
Kaplan also alleged in court that Prasad has been moving equipment out of the hospital. Brookins said equipment was “possibly” being moved to other Resilience Healthcare properties, but he did not specify where or what equipment.
Stanton expressed frustrated again.
“Why can’t you talk to each other?” he asked the attorneys. “Then we don’t have to litigate these issues.”