Last month, the district entered into early management agreements with two California organizations to manage Tulare Regional, which filed for bankruptcy in September. The judge ordered HCCA to transition management of the hospital to the healthcare district by Nov. 27.
However, the Tulare Regional Medical Center board voted in October to speed up the transition process, moving to boot HCCA before Nov. 27 and temporarily suspend medical services at the hospital until new management could take over.
The judge said during Thursday’s hearing he was “perturbed” by having to rush through court proceedings and warned lawyers on behalf of the healthcare district and HCCA not to file any motions on the issue before Thanksgiving, according to the report.
It is unclear when the hospital will reopen under new management or if the 500-plus employees who lost their jobs when the hospital closed nearly two-and-a-half weeks ago will be re-employed, the report states.
The Office of the District Attorney County of Tulare also confirmed Thursday it issued a search warrant to seize business records and emails belonging to Tulare Regional personnel, ABC-30 News reports.
The warrant included a court order to seize cellphones, computers, flash drives, payroll records and all emails for seven email addresses, according to ABC-30 News.
It is unclear to whom the property and the email addresses belonged.
“As there may be attorney-client, doctor-patient records contained in the seized items, the electronic data will be reviewed first by a court-appointed special master who will then provide all non-privileged information to the investigators of the district attorney for a thorough search for any and all relevant evidence. The Tulare Police Department provided assistance in the service of this search warrant,” a spokesperson for the district attorney said in a statement to ABC-30 News.
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