Greenwood Leflore Hospital and one of its owners appear to be in a bit of a turf war.
Round one Tuesday went to the hospital.
While the hospital board and administration were meeting at the hospital with several Leflore County and Greenwood elected officials, at the same time three Leflore County supervisors stewed at the courthouse that their call for a meeting there with hospital officials was ignored.
“They’re not being cooperative, a total lack of respect, and the integrity is in question with that hospital board,” said District 2’s Reginald Moore, who emphasized that the county is a co-owner of the hospital with the city of Greenwood.
The dueling meetings were precipitated by the supervisors’ formal call for the hospital board and CEO Jason Studley to meet with them on Tuesday to “discuss the financial aspects, the budget and any strategic plans you may have compiled for the future operation” of the hospital.
The letter requesting the May 10 meeting was signed by county Board President Robert Collins and delivered May 4. The hospital board responded with its own special called meeting for the same date and time, and it invited both county and city officials to attend.
“We didn’t want to meet with one group of owners without the other group of owners present,” said Studley.
Among those attending the meeting at the hospital were Supervisors Sam Abraham and Anjuan Brown from the Leflore County board and City Council members Ronnie Stevenson, Charles McCoy, Andrew Powell and Lisa Cookston from the Greenwood board.
At the courthouse were Moore, Collins, fellow Supervisor Eric Mitchell and Chancery Clerk Johnny Gary along with Greenwood Councilwoman Dorothy Glenn.
Abraham said he got caught in the middle of the jockeying.
“I really don’t have time for all this playing around,” he said “Right now I’m more focused on saving the hospital.”
The meeting at the hospital, which lasted more than an hour, was conducted in executive session. Flashed on a video screen was the topic “COVID Timeline and Impact on Operations,” but the press was excluded before the presentation began.
For the past couple of years, members of the Board of Supervisors have expressed their concerns about the hospital’s declining finances and what they perceive as a lack of transparency.
“We’re just disappointed at the way the hospital is leaving us out of the loop,” Collins said.
Moore said that he would be looking into filing a formal complaint with state or federal officials against the hospital board. He declined to specify with what agencies the complaint might be filed.
He said that the two county appointees on the hospital board, Tracy Shelton and Emma Bell, share the supervisors’ concerns. The two recently met behind closed doors with the Board of Supervisors.
The hospital has been losing millions of dollars every year for the past several years. The COVID-19 pandemic, despite bringing an infusion of about $25 million in mostly federal grant money, has added to the squeeze the hospital has been experiencing from what officials describe as steeply rising costs, especially for nurses and other skilled staff, and inadequate reimbursement rates from government and private insurers.
Although a cost-cutting plan implemented last year by the hospital administration is working, the savings have not been enough to stem the losses and the steady depletion of the hospital’s reserves.
For the first half of the current fiscal year, the hospital lost $3.9 million, but it would have been much worse if not for more than $8.1 million in coronavirus relief grants.
Abraham said that the problems being faced by the Greenwood hospital are shared by rural hospitals all over the country.
He declined to say what information Greenwood Leflore Hospital administrators shared at Tuesday’s closed-door meeting
“They’re working on different scenarios,” he said. “Once they determine the best scenario that can be brought forth, it will be presented to the city and the county as the owners.”
- Contact Gerard Edic at 581-7239 or gedic@gwcommonwealth.com.
