G NoSun ilb w N ert W ew ee s kl y
ASU softball ace credits growing up in Gilbert PAGE 20
An edition of the East Valley Tribune
INSIDE
This Week
NEWS................................ 2
Gov. Ducey disagrees with Ed Board's look at punishing teachers who walked.
BUSINESS ................... 16 The Gilbert Chamber of Commerce honored more than a dozen businesses and individuals.
GETOUT .......................22 Gilbert director debuts new dance production at MAC.
COMMUNITY............... 12 BUSINESS ....................16 OPINION ......................19 SPORTS .......................20 GETOUT ...................... 22 CLASSIFIED .................25
FREE ($1 OUTSIDE OF GILBERT) | GilbertSunNews.com
Sunday, June 24, 2018
Gilbert Hospital’s once-optimistic future crumbles BY WAYNE SCHUTSKY GSN Managing Editor
T
he once-prosperous Gilbert Hospital shut down for good on June 15, falling victim to longstanding financial problems stemming from a 2014 bankruptcy and a changing market for healthcare services. Court-appointed receiver Jeremiah Foster of Resolute Commercial Services made the decision to close the hospital – along with its affiliated hospital in Florence – only eight days after Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Roger Brodman gave him power over the hospital’s parent entity, New Vision Health. The decision resulted in the immediate clo-
sure of the emergency rooms at both hospitals. All patients receiving care were discharged or transferred to other facilities. “I’d like to stress that patient care was never in jeopardy, but the ability to sustain the minimum level of operations was simply too great of a financial burden moving forward,” Foster said in a prepared statement. After taking over, Foster attempted to secure sustainable financing to keep Gilbert Hospital open. The most viable option involved the hospital’s landlord, national investment firm Medical Properties Trust, taking over control of the hospital. It handed over operations to Steward Health
Care System, a Boston-based private hospital operator that has made inroads in the Phoenix market in recent years, said attorney Gerald Shelley of Fennemore Craig, who represented Gilbert Hospital in recent legal proceedings However, Medical Properties Trust was unable to agree to a deal with the hospitals’ primary creditor Indigo-DLI Holdings I, and “it became clear that all potential sources of financing had been exhausted and that the receiver had no realistic hope of obtaining necessary capital to continue operating the hospitals as going concerns,” according to court documents.
see HOSPITAL page 6
Accident forces autistic Gilbert girl to relearn life BY SRIANTHI PERERA GSN Contributor
J
eff Fleenor extended his care, patience, routine, creativity and nurturing to help raise his 9-year-old autistic daughter Liv. Liv completed third grade at the Autism Academy for Education and Development in Gilbert and will enter fourth grade in the fall. Now, Liv’s condition has taken a sudden nosedive. And Fleenor must begin all over again. Earlier this month, Liv was severely injured in an ATV accident at Bear Canyon Lake, near Payson. The girl was with her mom, Fleenor’s ex-wife, and members of her family. Thrown off the vehicle and thrust into its front, Liv’s thighbone was fractured in four places, and her eye socket, other facial bones, nose and elbow also were broken. She also suffered a lacerated liver and lung. Miraculously, with several surgeries completed, Liv is on the mend.
But a long and rocky road lies ahead. “The biggest challenges for us are going to be her current autism on top of the severe injuries that she sustained and how those are going to be incorporated into the rehabilitation process in multiple therapies that she’ll need,” said Fleenor, who interrupted a vacation in Mexico to fly to Liv’s bedside at Phoenix Children’s Hospital after the accident. Liv is mostly non-verbal, and the extent of her vocabulary is one- to four-word phrases. After her accident, she has acquired a new word. “She keeps yelling ‘help.’ She’ll wake up sporadically in the night and yell ‘help,’ I’ve never heard her say it before; it’s pretty scary,” said Fleenor, who suspects she has developed posttraumatic stress disorder as well. In addition to coping with the challenges of Liv’s recovery, hospital bills and other expenses are mounting and becoming a challenge as
see AUTISTIC page 8
(Special to GSN)
Liv Fleenor gives her dad, Jeff, a kiss. The 8-year-old autistic girl was seriously injured in an ATV mishap.