Editorial - Danville Register & Bee - Feb 11, 2007
Art Doloresco and the other LifePoint Hospitals Inc. officials at Tuesday’s special session of Danville City Council could have had a much tougher visit to the Municipal Building.
The time was limited and the crowd was muted by Mayor Wayne Williams - spectators in the packed council chambers weren’t allowed to ask questions or react to what was said.
It wasn’t the first time Danville City Council met with the chief executive officer of Danville Regional Medical Center, and given the passions and anger surrounding the issues, it probably won’t be the last. City Council, which had no opinion on the sale of Danville Regional when it was pending in 2005, has been pushed to do something by the public it serves.
To its credit, City Council has a unique opportunity to use its position to create a forum for community concerns. To the credit of Doloresco and LifePoint, they appear willing to address those concerns.
The bottom line is quality health care - and LifePoint’s management of the hospital since the deal was finalized on July 1, 2005.
LifePoint doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. At Tuesday’s meeting, it was revealed the company spent $26 million on the local hospital to complete the terms of the original sale - the purchase of new equipment and the construction of two floors in the Wyatt tower. Given that kind of investment, it’s not likely LifePoint would turn around and sell the hospital.
At the same time, the community’s frustration with this company’s management doesn’t appear to be going anywhere either.
The toughest questions asked Tuesday came from council members Sherman Saunders and Pete Castiglione, primarily about the number of nurses who work at the hospital and the ratio of nurses to patients. The questions echoed letters to this newspaper about the hospital being short-staffed.
If Tuesday’s meeting with LifePoint officials was meant to answer all the questions and resolve all the issues, it failed miserably. If it was, as Williams said, a way to “start the process of finding solutions,” then it was worth the time and effort.
Doloresco admitted that the transition to LifePoint’s management of Danville Regional “has been difficult.” But LifePoint has owned Danville Regional for one and a half years.
Danville needs a hospital its citizens can be confident in and LifePoint Hospitals Inc. needs the support of the community it now serves.
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2 comments:
This bunch of j---a---s at lifepoint has wasted so much money on paid consultants, hired head choppers and teaching everyone to operate a 25 year old computer system that they could have kept the employees that have been forced to retire, threatened with reassignment pool placement and intimidated out the door. They are not even good businessmen, they are a bunch of bean counters fluffing up the bottom line for their precious stockholders. If they were in the business to give world class health care, they could have done it here at DRMC. Their other hospitals were either bought at foreclosure auctions, or prior to bankruptcy hearings. It proves to me, they could care less about patients...just the color of the ink at the bottom line. biker.
IT AMAZING THAT KNIFEPOINT RUNS OFF SOME OF THE BEST NURSES IN THIS COUNTY FOR THE BOTTOM LINE BUT HAD TO PAY INCENTIVE TO HAVE ENOUGH COVERAGE THIS PAST WEEKEND. HOW IS THIS FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE?
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