Judge grants Children’s extension,board chair speaks

pay rent to university medical center. abc-7’s maria garcia joins us live to explain. maria? judge christopher mott says he’ll probably rule next tuesday if children’s should pay rent to the county hospital. for the first time today, we were able to ask the children’s board chair questions: 00-16 43-50 maria: what’s the incentive for the children’s hospital to end this promptly when the bankruptcy consultants are getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a month? rosemary: we’re committed to the taxpayers. they gave us a mission and we will fulfill that mission.that is the motivation. maria: the children’s hospital says umc negotiated in bad faith but wasn’t the children’s hospital who negotiated in bad faith? some people would argue that because you filed for bankruptcy or started the process when you were seemingly negotiating with umc. rosemary: i think you need to read the testimony that was given today. thank you.” children’s hospital board chair rosemary castillo- who’s repeatedly refused interviews — giving us ambigious answers. “they just don’t want to pay it because they’ve made such bad decisions in the past, such poor financial decisions, children’s says it shouldn’t have to pay umc rent because: umc was an insider in children’s decisions … umc had supposedly told children’s it didn’t need to pay rent in 2015 … and because umc allegedly negotiated agreements between the two hospitals in bad faith. but umc says children’s has no documented proof of any of that. the lease is a very necessary mechanism and they acknowledge that. now they’re trying to find a way out. and the way out is umc is the bad guy and judge please don’t make us pay the rent that we agreed to.” the judge gave children’s until december 15th to reject or assume the lease. estela — maria thank you. el paso children’s hospital c-e-o — mark herbers — emailed us the following statement: “as we have stated before children’s maintains the citizens of el paso should not have to pay for the building twice. the building occupied by children’s is fully funded by revenue bonds.” herbers goes on to say: “th stated rent under the lease reflects the complex world of healthcare funding, but was never meant to be paid if government reimbursements were not available to offset the stated rent.” we recently told you how the hiring of a