The "Little" Hospital Employees & Local Populace That Could

I've been following a story for a while now - that has had interesting developments over this past week. 

Beaufort Regional Hospital, in "Little Washington", N.C. (where my beloved Granddaddy Cecil drew his last breath - just a few weeks before I was accepted to Bowman Gray), has been in financial dire straights for a while now. 

The Board of Trustees and Beaufort County Commissioners have been looking to get bought out by bigger pockets . . . and have been entertaining a kind of bidding war . . . between a "for-profit" medical conglomerate out of Tennessee, and ECU/Pitt County Memorial (aka University Health Systems of East Carolina) - which is, of course, a non-profit.

In the interest of full disclosure (and as regular readers already know), I am independently-contracted by ECU as a Pediatric Hospitalist to staff one of their small-town affiliates, so I am kind of biased (based on my experience as a physician who has manged a number of clinical situations over the years where I needed ECU/Eastcare FAST and they've delivered EVERY time) as to what should happen.

I had heard through the grapevine that many of the employees at Beaufort Regional felt the same way.

Earlier this month it was announced that Beaufort Regional's Board of Trustees (I'm thinking it's composed of local businessmen very much like those who "oversee" Randolph Hospital) had decided to go with the "for profit" company.

No big surprise.  It's been my unfortunate experience that board members of some of these little hospitals rarely give a rat's tail about what doctors and nurses think.  We're barely on the radar.

But low and behold, when residents of Washington/Beaufort County and employees of the hospital got wind of the decision . . . by virtue of newspapers and TV stations that actually report on what's going on in their community . . . and before the Board's recommendation was presented to the County Commissioners . . . they staged a protest this past Saturday.

And they got on TV!

And their message got out.  They didn't want some for-profit monster from another state running their little hospital.  They wanted a healthcare system nearby that had already earned their trust.

Tonight word is that the Tennessee "for-profit" has withdrawn it's offer - in the wake of an injunction issued by a local judge to block the sale for ten days.

I must say, I am pleased. 

And it reinforces my greatest wish for my hometown.  Someday, I hope we have a better newspaper and a  better-informed populace in Asheboro (I'm recalling a time when a homegrown Pediatrician was angry/frustrated enough to strap a sign to her body and stage a lone protest out in front of Randolph Hospital and was ignored by every medical outlet except the town weekly newspaper) . . . and that the local populace some day gets tired of liars-in-suits driving good doctors out of town or selling out entire segments of the patient population . . . and that one day it has the collective courage to stand up and do what's right by everyone . . . as opposed to what's best for Bob Morrison's parachute.