Despite earlier predictions that the El Paso (Texas) Children's Hospital bankruptcy would be completed this year, consultants and lawyers for the hospital Wednesday asked that deadlines be extended into next year, the El Paso Times reported today. Children's Hospital asked Bankruptcy Judge H. Christopher Mott to double the hospital's "exclusivity" period. If it is granted, Children's Hospital will have the sole right to file a restructuring plan until Jan. 13. Until March 14, it will have the sole right to negotiate in an attempt to get the hospital's creditors to accept it. In its court pleading, Children's Hospital said that it needs the time because the consultants running the hospital have been preoccupied with other tasks related to the hospital's financial woes.
