Brotman Medical Center, financially flailing, formally and dauntingly filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, either last night or this morning, sources told the newspaper today.
Former Mayor Ed Wolkowitz, a bankruptcy attorney, said this afternoon that four of every five Chapter 11 filings “fail to reach a successful solution. Each case is unique, of course. But, typically, these businesses fail because people waited too long to file.”
From a pure commerce standpoint, it was not evident this early whether the last-resort act will salvage a fiscally quivering business or merely prolong the agony.
The purpose of Chapter 11 filings, lawyers say, is to allowed troubled businesses to buy time to revamp their structure, to begin to make peace with creditors and, hopefully, to line up new investors.
A Culver City businessman of nearly 40 years said that Brotman, the immediate region’s only hospital, will not close “because it can’t. It just can’t. It is unthinkable. You might equate closing with Sony Pictures shutting down.”
Marina Hospital, which is not a full-service facility, is the next closest hospital, perhaps four miles distant.
Having weathered constant ownership changes over the past 30 years, and trying to exist in a Southern California climate that medical/business experts deem unfriendly for both non-profit and for-profit hospitals, Brotman is confronted by possibly the stiffest odds in its 83-year history.