NBH navigates through restructuring effort

Northern Berkshire Healthcare has reached a major breakthrough with its bond holders and is poised to restructure its debt in a way that will ensure the survival of the region's community hospital into the future, Richard Palmisano, the organization's president and CEO, said Thursday.

"It's all about moving forward," Palmisano said during a lengthy interview at the Transcript about North Adams Regional Hospital. "We need to ‘right-size' everything. It's hard. It's challenging. It's time-consuming. But I'm confident we will come out of all of this in a stabilized form and provide the good quality health care this community needs."

According to Palmisano, Northern Berkshire Health is approaching the third step of a four-pronged plan that could eventually lead to an affiliation with Berkshire Health Systems or another large health-care organization. He said the nonprofit is seeking a "consentual or pre-packaged reorganization" with its bond holders that will eventually result in a Chapter 11 filing for debt restructuring -- possibly within a year.