AUBURN — The bad news has been out for some time — Maine’s hospitals are old, poor and heavily in debt.

What Central Maine Healthcare’s CEO and President Steve Littleson shared with the Lewiston-Auburn Metro Chamber of Commerce Thursday is what’s being done about it at the local level.

Speaking at a chamber breakfast Thursday at the Hilton Garden Inn, Littleson said the proposed acquisition of Central Maine Healthcare by California-based Prime Healthcare Foundation is key to turning the financial and operational standing of the hospital system around.

Littleson said a regulatory review is underway and the necessary Certificate of Need application has been submitted to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. The state must approve the proposed acquisition first.

“We are planning on the commissioner of health approving our application within the next 90 days and then we have about 90 days of work to close on the acquisition,” Littleson said. “We’re hoping to become part of the Prime Healthcare family by Jan. 1.”

Thursday’s program came as Central Maine Healthcare struggles with what they have called a “cyber incident.” At the breakfast, Littleson did not address the company’s widespread system outage that has frustrated patients who have had difficulty reaching providers, making appointments and filling prescriptions.

He said Prime Healthcare is making a significant contribution to the community.

As part of the acquisition deal, he said, Prime Healthcare has committed to investing $150 million in Central Maine Healthcare over five years.

“To us, that’s a ton of money,” he said. “The impact of that investment is going to be felt far and wide. Certain specific commitments include expanding the emergency departments at Bridgton and Rumford hospitals (and) expanding our OR imaging and cardiovascular capabilities at the medical center.”

Littleson noted there is a list of commitments Prime Healthcare officials have made, including hiring all 3,200 people on staff. “They’ve committed to pay all of our debt, continue making payments on our team member pension plan,” he said.

Hospital system leaders have known for years about its precarious financial situation and have been looking to become part of a larger health system since 2013, with no luck. The benefits of aligning with a larger health system are straightforward, Littleson told the gathering of businessmen and businesswomen.

“Larger health systems bring economies of scale, they bring purchasing power, they bring bargaining power. Larger health systems bring expertise. They bring the ability to spread,” he said.

Littleson even talked about expansion, fielding a question from Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline asking what would happen to jobs under the proposed acquisition.

“As demand for health care certainly is growing as our population ages, we need to expand our services,” Littleson said. “We need to expand access. We will have the capital to do that, and by expanding we’re going to need more people working in health care and we’re going to expand jobs accordingly.”

In response, Sheline said, “There is no doubt that health care is facing significant headwinds here in Maine. I’m happy that there is a path forward for our city’s largest employer that will increase employment opportunities and lead to meaningful patient-focused investments.”

Another argument for the merger the leader of CMHC laid out is that Prime Healthcare is led by physicians, which Littleson said makes all the difference in the world when it comes to improving the performance of a hospital.

“When the physicians are leading change, it makes it a whole lot easier for our clinicians to get on board, and to improve our operations in terms of quality, patient safety and financial performance,” he said.

While significant hurdles remain, Littleson offered a nibble of optimism to the gathering. “We’re ending this (fiscal) year with the healthiest bottom line that that we’ve had since 2015, and a good reason for that is that we’re growing as Lewiston grows, as Androscoggin County grows, as central Maine is growing in some areas.”