"Too late, on time"

Danville Register and Bee - Editorial
Wednesday, February 6, 2008

How many local people are still angry that Danville Regional Medical Center was sold in 2005?
Both the hospital’s buyer, LifePoint Hospitals Inc., and the Danville Regional Foundation, the group formed to distribute the profits from the sale, want to move on. But moving on doesn’t make much sense unless some lessons can be learned and some changes made.
This year, Delegate Danny Marshall, R-Danville, is trying to do just that with a bill that would force the process of selling a nonprofit hospital into the light of day.
Marshall’s bill would mandate a public process, unlike the behind-closed-doors sale of Danville Regional that created so much ill will.
“It lets the people know there will be a public hearing,” Marshall said of his bill. That public hearing would take place at least six months before a hospital sale, and the public would have to be told about proposed staffing changes and be presented with “a business plan explaining how the sale or conversion will affect the community.”
A separate provision that would prevent a nonprofit hospital’s directors from serving “on a newly established private foundation’s board of directors” was taken out of the bill and will have to be introduced next year.
Marshall’s bill can’t change what happened to Danville Regional, and it doesn’t put the brakes on future sales of nonprofit hospitals. But it does drag the process into the light of day, and it could help in a lot of future situations. Virginia is home to approximately 100 acute care hospitals, and 75 to 80 percent of them are nonprofit, according to the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association, which supports Marshall’s bill.
“We worked with Delegate Marshall to come up with this language,” Katharine M. Webb, senior vice president of the association, said of the bill. It passed the House of Delegates 97-1 and has already been referred to the Senate Courts of Justice committee.
If Marshall is a couple of years late with the hospital sale bill, he’s a couple of months ahead with a bill that could make it easier for Danville City Council to eventually eliminate the treasurer’s office.
This has become an important issue locally because the last elected treasurer, Lynda McDowell, was indicted on criminal charges. She resigned her office and pleaded guilty. Today, Danville has an interim treasurer and City Council is considering eliminating the treasurer’s office entirely.
A quirk in state law could drag the process out so long that a new treasurer could be elected in 2009 - before Danville’s voters get a chance to answer the larger, more important question. But Marshall’s bill could put the fate of the treasurer’s office on the November ballot if City Council decides to move in that direction.
These two bills remind us experience is a tough teacher, leaving us to try to speed up some things while slowing others down.