It has been many years since the Portsmouth Hospital became HCA Portsmouth Regional Hospital, some 30 years in fact.

That was the first takeover of a community facility by a for-profit corporation in the state. Since then, and very recently, there has been a spate of hospital mergers or proposed takeovers.

The biggest, and most recent has been the proposed alliance between Elliot Health Systems in Manchester and Dartmouth-Hitchcock in Lebanon. Another widely publicized merger is between Mass General and nonprofit Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover.

While that merger hasn’t raised many eyebrows, and the deal to merge Memorial in North Conway with Maine Medical Center has been done, New Hampshire’s anti-trust and charitable trust departments will be putting the Dartmouth deal under the microscope. Dartmouth-Hitchcock has already set up a healthcare network including New London, Cheshire Medical and Mount Ascutney in Vermont.

Roger Wood InDepth spoke to Jayme Simoes of Louis Karno Communications in Concord about the merger mania and related issues. For InDepthNH.org, I’m Roger Wood