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Category: Editorials Editorials
Published: 03 July 2018 03 July 2018

When something gets sold, generally the seller gets paid. Yet there has been no transparency about what payment will be made to Grant County if they decide to sell the hospital. Nor has there been discussion of how any money would be used. Would the payout be used for improvement of the health of the public? Do the Commissioners plan a physical project?

I am on record as being against the sale of the hospital to a for-profit entity. In my 50 years as a Registered Nurse, I have worked for both for-profit and non-profit hospitals. While GRMC belongs to us, we can assume that decisions will be made for the benefit of Grant and surrounding counties. No such assurance can be made if it is privately owned. LifePoint, the most frequently mentioned suitor, is a holding company, not a medical administrationcompany, so we would be presumably handed off to a subsidiary, about which the public knows nothing. By the way, googling LifePoint brought me to a poorly functioning website, and a financial advisor's assessment that this company has the fastest decline in stock price of it's comparable group. I don't find either reassuring.

Public meetings show that everyone willing to commit publically is against the change. Why then are the public's elected Commissioners so eager to entertain a sale?

There is a famous old saying: Follow The Money.
Transparency, please, Commissioners.

Sincerely,
Patricia Heck
Silver City