"Who Pays?"

Editorial - Danville Register and Bee
Monday, April 23, 2007
Several members of Danville City Council aren't happy that the Citizen's Committee - the group formed to look into health care issues at Danville Regional Medical Center - hasn't held any public hearings yet.
Those public hearings will happen soon enough. Three are scheduled for early May in Danville, Pittsylvania County and Caswell County, N.C.
It's understandable why members of City Council are frustrated with the pace of their committee's work. The public has a lot of questions about the hospital that need to be answered.
But what does the public think about the news last week that the committee's consultant will be paid with money from the Danville Regional Foundation?
"(The foundation) has no input whatsoever into our final recommendations or what the committee is doing," co-chair Jim Houser said.
That's probably true, but in the current climate, how many people are going to believe it?
For those keeping score at home, Danville Regional Medical Center was locally owned until it was sold to LifePoint Hospitals Inc. in 2005. Members of the hospital's board who sold the hospital used the $200 million received from the sale to start the Danville Regional Foundation.
So now we have the foundation, funded from the hospital sale, paying for the consultant who will examine the way the hospital has been run since the sale.
What can be said of Danville Regional Foundation doing this? Either it's a galling irony that won't be lost on anyone, or it's a noble attempt on the foundation's part to reach out to the community it hopes to serve.
Danville City Council created the Citizen's Committee to deal with this issue, but either wasn't asked or didn't want to spend $25,000 to hire the consultant who will help its own committee. While $25,000 isn't walking-around money for most people, it's a drop in the proverbial bucket for a municipal government developing a $102.4 million budget.
Danville City Council should have paid for the consultant advising its Citizen's Committee and kept the Danville Regional Foundation out of it. Allowing the foundation to pay the consultant further complicates a tense situation.

(Note: sorry for the delay in posting this....the R&B website has been delaying the update of their opinion pages....it's a week old, but still worth reading)