November 11, 2002
BGCT approves sale of Baptist Health System of San Antonio
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___WACO--The Baptist General Convention of Texas has consented to sell Baptist Health System of San Antonio to Vanguard Health Systems, a for-profit company.
___Messengers to the 2002 BGCT annual session ratified the sale Nov. 10 in Waco. Their vote completed the fifth step in the sale-approval process. Previously, the sale had been ratified by the BHS board of directors, plus the BGCT's Human Welfare Coordinating Board, Administrative Committee and Executive Board.
___ The five-hospital Baptist Health System has endured several years of financial difficulties. Those woes prompted the system's BGCT-elected trustees to seek a partner or buyer.
___ Vanguard agreed to pay $174 million to reduce long-term debt and provide another $28 million for debt due next year. It also will spend $200 million on capital improvements in the next five yeas. And it pledged to provide $100 million to create a foundation that will support Baptist health-care and human-needs ministries in San Antonio.
___ At the request of the Human Welfare Coordinating Board, Baptist Health System trustees also considered a purchase offer from Valley Baptist Health System, a BGCT institution based in Harlingen. Advocates of the sale to Valley Baptist stressed the importance of keeping Baptist Health System within the BGCT fold and an aversion to selling an organization with "Baptist" in its name to a for-profit corporation.
___ However, Baptist Health System trustees declined Valley Baptist's offer, favoring Vanguard's more lucrative terms. They cited confidence that Vanguard was better suited to fund quality health care in San Antonio and the surrounding area.
___ Then the Human Welfare Coordinating Board voted "with reluctance and disappointment" to recommend the sale to Vanguard.
___ Some of that reluctance surfaced at the BGCT annual session in Waco. Vernon Garrett, a lay member of South Main Baptist Church in Houston, opposed the sale. "I'm in favor of doing everything possible to retain our institutions," he said.
___ Later, Garrett presented a motion calling for the word "Baptist" to be removed from the Baptist Health System's name upon completion of the sale to Vanguard.
___ After meeting with Human Welfare Coordinating Board leaders, Garrett announced the next day that he would favor referral of his motion to the coordinating board.
___ Keith Bruce, coordinator of institutional ministries for the BGCT, reminded messengers that Texas Baptists will continue to have a majority of trustees on the Baptist Health System board, even after its sale to Vanguard.
___ In addition, Vanguard has agreed to continue to fund chaplaincy ministries, maintain strict policies against abortion, employ a vice president for missions and ministries, and operate charity care at current levels and to increase that care in the future, Bruce said.
___ These stipulations are contingent upon continued use of "Baptist" in the name, he added.
___ However, the Human Welfare Coordinating Board will monitor Vanguard's operation of the health system, he pledged, promising to pull "Baptist" from the name if Vanguard breaks the sale contract, violates Baptist polity and policy, and "does anything detrimental" to the Baptist witness.
___ The convention voted to create a special committee to oversee the "definitive agreement for sale" of the system to Vanguard. Members of the committee will be the chairman of the BGCT Executive Board, and the chairmam, chairman-elect and executive committee of the Human Welfare Coordinating Board.
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