Citizens Committee Named

Hospital commission takes shape
Danville Register & Bee
Wednesday, March 7, 2007

DANVILLE - Seven Dan River Region residents have been tasked with finding out exactly what is wrong with the Danville Regional Medical Center and figuring out how to fix it.
“Every one of you will be able to offer a truly objective recommendation that our community can take to heart,” Mayor Wayne Williams said Tuesday night as he introduced the Citizens Committee to Danville City Council.
Williams told the group that he wanted them to hold a series of meetings with community members over the next several weeks to discuss what is both good and bad about the care offered at the hospital, especially since LifePoint Hospitals Inc. purchased it in July 2005.
The hospital commission would then use this information to come up with a list of key problems the hospital faced with its quality of care and work with LifePoint and an outside organization to come up with ways to address them.
“(This task will be) immensely complicated and I do not envy you at all,” Danville Regional CEO Art Doloresco told the group, adding he would be happy to provide the commission with any information it wanted and even volunteered to take minutes of its meetings.
Williams told the commission that he wanted it to provide council with its final report in the next 90 days and that he wanted regular updates on the commission’s work to take place at every council meeting. He then walked out the door and let the group get to work.
Commission members include Jim Houser, Clarissa Knight, David Caldwell, Arlene Creasy, Linda Green, Samuel Griffith and Robert Whitt.
Within 45 minutes, the group had chosen Houser, an environmental health specialist with the Virginia Department of Health, and Knight, an assistant superintendent with Pittsylvania County Public Schools, as its co-chairs.
“I’m looking at three things: accountability, plain truth and a vision for the future,” Houser said, adding that his biggest concern was to divide “what has been sensationalized from what is the factual truth.”
The group has scheduled its first formal meeting for 6 p.m. Thursday in the hospital’s main conference room. Houser said it would probably take a few weeks before the commission is ready to schedule any public forums.