After uphill battle, company is poised for takeover of bankrupt California hospital

Beehler said AAM would aim for “operational efficiency” through centralized administration and “elevate the quality of care” to attract more patients. “These strategic investments and improvements are designed to stabilize the hospital’s financial footing and ensure its sustainability in the long term,” he said.

According to a recent study by the Pittsburgh-based Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, 30% of California’s 56 rural hospitals and the same percentage of rural hospitals nationwide are at risk of closing.

“The economics of small hospitals is such that it is unlikely they are going to be highly profitable,” said Harold Miller, the center’s CEO.

The group objecting to AAM, along with many members of the community, are particularly worried that the company won’t reopen the Madera hospital’s labor and delivery department, where over 700 babies were born in 2022.

Labor and delivery at many rural hospitals are among the first services new owners cut because they tend to lose money, said Ge Bai, professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Beehler said a reopened Madera would provide “many of the ancillary services” related to pregnancy and that AAM would “regularly evaluate” whether it makes financial and clinical sense to have a labor and delivery unit at the hospital.

‘Someone Has to Take a Stand’

AAM is the brainchild of Gurpreet Singh Randhawa, who says he is its sole owner.

Singh, a gastroenterologist-turned-entrepreneur, has amassed hospitals and other health care-related companies, as well as numerous real estate holdings. Public records show dozens of businesses that are or have been associated with Singh.

After graduating from medical school in India in 2000, Singh completed further training in New York and New Jersey before moving to California in 2008. In an interview, Singh said he was inspired to open his first hospital after seeing a friend drive three hours round trip to the Sacramento area every day to visit his father in a long-term acute care hospital because Modesto didn’t have one of its own.

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