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The saga surrounding the fate of Bayonne Medical Center took another turn on Feb. 16, when Hudson Regional Hospital said it filed an application with the state Health Department for a certificate of need to operate the facility.

Secaucus-based Hudson Regional has been locked in a dispute over the ownership of BMC with CarePoint Health — which now operates the medical center — and BMC Hospital LLC, a rival suitor. In August 2020 Hudson Regional acquired the property on which BMC is situated for $76 million. CarePoint has been leasing the property since, but Hudson Regional said it terminated the lease on Dec. 31 and began eviction proceedings in Delaware.

“As the landlord for CarePoint at Bayonne, we are gravely concerned that the denouement of the BMC business plan and CarePoint’s inability to meet the conditions of its lease could at any time result in its abandonment or its inability to continue operating an acute care facility at Bayonne,” Dr. Nizar Kifaieh, president and CEO of Hudson Regional, said in a Feb. 18 statement.

“As we have asserted frequently during this process, Hudson Regional stands ready to assume operations at Bayonne at a moment’s notice,” he added. “Our pending Certificate of Need application acknowledges that CarePoint remains the operator for Bayonne until such time as it fulfills on its announced intention to exit the market; but asserts that in the public interest the remainder of the Application should be considered on the merits and approved conditioned upon the Delaware courts enforcing HRH’s leasehold right to possession.”

In addition to BMC, CarePoint operated two other hospitals in Hudson County: Christ Hospital in Jersey City and Hoboken University Medical Center. In 2019, RWJBarnabas Health agreed to acquire Christ Hospital and HUMC, leaving the Bayonne Medical Center’s status up in the air.

Hudson Regional also said that BMC Hospital had withdrawn its lawsuits related to the dispute. “We vigorously defended these allegations and prevailed in three substantive preliminary hearings and motions that vindicated our position,” Hudson regional said.

In a statement, a BMC Hospital spokesman said that the company’s intentions have not changed. “As part owners of Bayonne Medical Center already, we remain fully committed to fulfilling the wishes of the community and dozens of elected officials by taking over full operations of the hospital as soon as our certificate of need is approved by the Department of Health,” this person said. “HRH’s statements and actions amount to lies and have destabilized healthcare for tens of thousands of patients at Bayonne Medical Center.”

Ron Simoncini, a spokesman for Hudson Regional, fired back by characterizing the litigation withdrawal as a “seminal moment of surrender.”

“[I]f they could not afford to focus on the litigation they themselves brought while they illegally maintain a small presence in a hospital, how could they possibly be trusted to run a whole hospital” Simoncini said in an emailed statement.

BMC Hospital was formed by a group of health care investors led by Wayne Hatami, who is also a physical therapist.

This article was updated at 2:15 p.m. EST on Feb. 19, 2021 to include comments from BMC Hospital and Hudson Regional on the withdrawal of litigation related to the dispute.

This article was updated at 5:30 p.m. EST on Feb. 19, 2021 to include a statement submitted to NJBIZ from a spokesperson for BMC Hospital LLC.