January 18, 2017
By Paragon News Director Paul Joseph –
The Sayre City Council – acting as the Sayre Memorial Hospital Authority – made it official Tuesday night. They finalized the sale of their hospital to a partnership with local interests.
Bob Hicks, owner and manager of two Western Oklahoma alcohol and drug rehabilitation centers is now also the owner of Sayre Community Hospital – along with another business partner who are known as Healthcare Properties Transaction Group of Oklahoma, LLC.
After having worked behind the scenes for months attempting to make the deal happen, Tuesday night, Hicks got what he wanted.
The hospital officially closed Monday, February 1, 2016 at 5 pm – almost a year ago. It’s been buttoned up with the sign removed for months.
Now, that’s just a memory and Mayor Eddie Tom Lakey is happy to finally move forward.
Healthcare Properties Transaction Group is comprised of two long-time friends and business partners, one is in Louisiana. Hicks, who operates the two New Hope Recovery Centers in Sayre, will manage and operate the facility.
In April of last year, two months after the hospital was closed by the Sayre Memorial Hospital Board of Directors, a buyer stepped forward and announced the acquisition, and however, the sale was never consummated.
Lakey says it’s up to Hicks but believes the hospital will be open soon.
Hicks will take over the hospital and be the beneficiary of a new, $1.5-million dollar surgical room that was seldom used. It was constructed in 2015 partly as a result of a special, one-cent city sales tax that began in 2013. The surgical suite received its occupancy certificate a couple months later. It was thought that surgeries performed at the hospital could provide needed revenue.
Lakey says that’s no longer a city concern.
Sayre voters approved their one-cent city sales tax in April of 2013 that ear-marked the penny for subsidizing Sayre Memorial Hospital. The vote was approved by a healthy margin, 87% yes to 13% no. It went into effect July 1 of 2013. It’s since been rescinded and is no longer in effect.
Sayre council members also voted Tuesday night to release the last of those sales tax monies from the now abandoned penny tax to be sent to the former hospital bond holder in order to complete all the legal transactions associated with their former city-owned hospital. The money that had been generated after the hospital closed but before the tax was rescinded had been kept in an account until it could be released.
The money left over in the account is approximately $260-thousand dollars.
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