Hospital board hears L&D task force recommendation

The Bryan W. Whitfield Memorial Hospital Board of Trustees met Monday evening with the Labor and Delivery Task Force before going into executive session.

The task force presented its recommendation regarding continued labor and delivery service in Demopolis.

“The task force is asking the board for their consideration on a multi-fold recommendation,” Dr. Ken Tucker, spokesperson for the task force, said in opening the presentation.

At the center of the task force’s proposal is the establishment of what has been termed a women’s pavilion and the potential addition of a one-percent sales tax that would help to fund the facility.

The facility, as envisioned by the task force, would feature obstetrics, gynecology, pediatrics, prevention and mammography.

“The task force recognized, once we vetted all the issues and once we looked at all the potential solutions. Short term, the recommendation was for this women’s pavilion was to rent space in the hospital,” Tucker said. “If the goal is to find a way to keep Labor and Delivery open, then the short-term recommendation is for that to occur.”

The crux of the discussion, and the point that drew most of those in attendance Monday evening, was the plan’s call for a one-percent sales tax through the Demopolis City Council that would partially fund the pavilion.

“The funding, we talked about a lot of different potential ways to fund this venture. The point is to create something new and different that would appeal to women in our area, something that would be competitive with Northport, DCH, Meridian, Selma,” Tucker said. “(There was) a lot of discussion around a three to five mill ad valorem tax through the county. At best, that was seen to be as a potential long-term solution. When we discussed that, there were only about two weeks in the legislative session, so it seemed nearly impossible to get it to the legislature to have it on the November ballot, so that would be yet another year. The task force also wanted to recommend that the board consider approaching the county commission in the future about this ad valorem tax with a portion of those proceeds to benefit the hospital.”

As part of its recommendation, the task force also suggested the board pursue legal action against the county commissions who are delinquent on providing funding for the indigent care cases coming out of their respective counties.

“There was an awful lot of discussion. We didn’t leave many rocks unturned,” Jim Grantham, a hospital board member on the task force, said. “The hope was that, in the long run, the financial burden of that facility would not be as great as it is today.”

“The number of deliveries that we do – between 225 and 260 is what we hoped to accomplish this year – just does not come close to covering the hard cost. Realistically, it’s close to $400,000 of pretty hard loss each year. The reason (we looked at) public funding was that with the financial situation of this hospital, we would not come close to being able to fund labor and delivery year after year after year,” BWWMH board member Jay Shows said. “Everybody is wanting to keep it open if possible, but that is the reason the public funding issue came up. The hospital no longer has the funding to float it. I respect our city officials for even considering it. I don’t know how it will play out.”

After the board members chimed in, Demopolis Mayor Mike Grayson, who also served on the task force, addressed the proposal.

“This hospital is crucial to what we’re trying to do in this city in terms of keeping businesses open and attracting new business,” Grayson said. “This hospital is essential to this community, this county, this region. In good conscience, I could not sit by and at least allow us to investigate everything that we could do here. I do think that if we could do this right and we could pull this off, then we could actually end up with something better than what we had before.”

Shows asked Grayson if the city would hold a public forum to discuss the possibility of adding a tax should the tax reach the desk of the city council.

“There would be, but nothing is going to happen until we get a green light from this board,” Grayson said. “We get a green light from this board the next thing is to call a public hearing, probably at the civic center. The final decision would be made by the six people sitting around that table.”

Grayson said the tax would represent approximately $100,000 per month and $1.2 million annually.

How that money would be divided has yet to be determined but City Councilman Charles Jones indicated that Grayson’s goal of seeing all the money go to labor and delivery is not shared by the entire council.

“Mike would like to see $1.2 million go. I’m not in favor of giving it all to the hospital and, furthermore, I’m not in favor of it all going to Labor and Delivery,” Jones said.