Westlake Regional Hospital will be offered for sale or seek a merger with another health care entity following action taken by the hospital’s board of trustees at a special called meeting Thursday, December 1.

The board voted unanimously to follow the recommendation of Spectrum Health Partners, which has managed the hospital for the past 10 months. Spectrum CEO Ken Doran, who had been serving as the hospital’s interim CEO, told the board that they “should begin to explore a partnership merger or sale” and the process should begin immediately.

The board voted to begin the process of doing so, and voted to hire Spectrum as financial advisors as they begin exploring partnership options.

“It’s been a difficult decision to arrive at, but it’s a necessary one,” he said. “The hospital’s assets have been overstated and the debts understated for way too long, and it’s finally caught up with me.

“The more we dig (in the finances) the bigger the hole became.”

Doran said that in the past 11 years, the hospital has lost a cumulative $11.75 million, and the audit reports have been misstated since 2004.

“For seven of the nine years the hospital was audited by the previous auditing firm, the audit showed the hospital making a profit,” he said. “However, it actually lost money in all those years.”

Due to incorrect financial information presented to the board of trustees, Doran said that the board “was tasked with making financial decisions based on false information.”

Doran said that the hospital currently has $12.8 million in long-term debt and is facing a $1.1 million annual debt payment. The hospital also owes Medicaid $2.372 million for overpayments made to its rural health clinics.

In light of these debts and the fact that the hospital continues to lose money due to its poor census population, he said the hospital could be forced into bankruptcy.

Doran said that the hospital board can look at six different options, and he quickly ruled out the first two.

The first one would be to maintain the status quo but introduce a 10 cents property tax. “It’s very clear there is no interest in doing that, so it’s ruled out,” he said.

The second option would be to take the hospital into bankruptcy, and Doran said they do not recommend doing that.

The third option would be to maintain the status quo, but Doran said to do so “you would have to have a massive influx of capital” and the hospital has no means of obtaining this capital.

“I’ve never seen a facility so strapped for capital as Westlake,” he noted.

The remaining three options are: to seek a merger partner; to seek an asset purchaser; or to seek a stock purchase transaction.

After several minutes of debate, the hospital board voted to explore the possibilities of the last three options.

In a press release issued by WRH December 2, Interim CEO Tim Menton said the Westlake board has approved the formal process of investigating the potential options of strategic alignments. No specific recommendations have been developed at this time. In the meantime, Westlake’s board, management, employees, and medical staff will continue to serve its patients each day with the same dedication and quality they have exhibited in the past 45 years. Menton stated that this process will take three to six months to complete.

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A perfect season had the perfect ending as the No. 2-seed Lindsey Wilson College men’s soccer team outlasted No. 1-seed Hastings (Nebraska) University 3-2 in overtime to collect its ninth NAIA National Championship on Saturday, December 3 at the Orange Beach Sportsplex.

Just six minutes into the extra period, junior Lebogang Moloto took possession just outside the box and drove by himself to put away the game-winning goal and start the championship celebration.

The Blue Raiders end the 2011 season with a 23-0-0 record, recording its first perfect season since 1998 when it was 25-0-0.

“To these kids’ credit, they work hard during the year, in overtime this season we haven’t given up a shot,” said Lindsey Wilson head coach Ray Wells. “So Tsunami (Moloto) running through on that last play, I’ll be honest with you doesn’t surprise me. It was such a good effort by everybody, I’m so proud of all of them.

Lindsey Wilson out shot Hastings 21-6, including a 9-6 advantage in shots on goal.