Town hall meeting puts BWWMH administrator on hot seat

For 90 minutes hospital administrator Mike Marshall found himself in the crosshairs of comments, questions and criticisms at a town hall meeting concerning Bryan W. Whitfield Memorial Hospital.

The forum, held at Rooster Hall Tuesday night, was a chance for Demopolis citizens to have a voice on two issues, the closing of labor and delivery at the hospital and the proposed sale of liquor on Sunday, said Mayor Mike Grayson. The only issue discussed was the hospital, however.

The sentiments of the people in the audience were visible. Many of them wore bright yellow t-shirts with “Say No To Drugs, Not Babies” printed on them. They were concerned with the belief that Marshall was pushing for opening a psychiatric ward at the hospital while closing labor and delivery.

“The hospital is not important to the community,” Grayson said in his opening remarks. “It is crucial to what we try to do in the community.”

Marshall began his comments by saying that during the last two years Alabama has lost seven hospitals in the state, five of which were rural. “If you want to point a finger at anybody you can point it to federal and state payment policies when it relates to Medicare and Medicaid.”

He said 73 percent of the Demopolis hospital’s revenue stream comes from those two sources. Medicare payments in Alabama are the lowest in the United States. Medicaid in the state is “the most bare-bones in the country in terms of services.”

Facing those issues, he continued, the hospital hasn’t been sitting back but has taken action to cut costs and begin new programs to increase revenue.

His comments didn’t make any difference to people in the audience who accused the hospital of mismanagement or believe Marshall is attempting to turn the facility into a psychiatric hospital.

Marshall said the annual audit by an independent auditing firm is available for anyone to study. Copies are sent to the city, the county and the hospital board.

Mary Jo Martin asked why a psychiatric facility couldn’t be set up off premises instead of being housed with medical patients. Marshall responded that it would be cost prohibitive to build and staff such a unit. He also said that in the more than three years that the geriatric/psychiatric unit has been open, there has been only one instance of a patient who caused a threat to others.

He stressed that the hospital will continue to meet its mission of bringing quality health care to the city and will not end its medical and surgical programs. If the state approves the hospital’s Certificate of Need for a psychiatric unit, 10 of the 99 beds will be converted for use.

The hospital serves 40,000 patients annually, he continued. Labor and Delivery is the smallest program with some 250 babies delivered each year.

The $68,000 which the city approved as a stop-gap measure to keep labor and delivery open has been returned to the city since the announcement last week that the unit will close effective Feb. 28, Marshall said in response to another question.

Another speaker asked for an independent evaluation to make recommendations to run the hospital more efficiently. Marshall said two groups have been brought in during the last six years to help streamline operations and billing.

Several members of the audience, including Dr. Tiffany Ward, complained about the poor lack of communication on the part of the hospital in letting people know of the problem until it was too late to do anything about it.

“I really wish you had come to us and communicated the problem and said what could we do to fix it,” Dr. Ward said to Marshall.

City Judge Woody Dinning Jr. recalled that the hospital was on the point of closing labor and delivery two years ago when the city and county each gave $100,000 to keep it open.

At that time, Dinning continued, the hospital was told “before you do this again, come back to the county and let us deal with the problem,” whether to consider a raise in property tax or sales tax or some other action.

He said, “I think we all need to partner up and get this fixed.”

That was a sentiment expressed by most people when Mayor Grayson asked a show of hands whether to continue the Labor and Delivery Task Force to explore all avenues for reopening the unit.

“It’s not going to be more of the same,” said Grayson. “The problem won’t be solved by throwing more money at it, and the task force will have to think outside the box.

A woman who moved to Demopolis in 2000 and has delivered six children at the hospital asked, “How are you going to think outside the box if you’re not including the women who are having babies.”

She said she has experience with the hospital and has a lot of ideas on how to help keep the unit open.