I read about this, excerpted below, in the PD today, here
If the hospital board could NOT vote tomorrow to close our hospital, but instead move toward a doctor-run takeover of the hospital, the Sebastopol may be able to preserve a service that our community, even when far smaller, supported since 1941.
I am tired of hearing how diminished expectations have become the new normal for services that matter to our community, to We, the People, because of the profit-mongering manipulation of private health insurance companies and their enablers that we pay to staff our government.
Let's model something different! Palm Drove Board members need to give this a few more days--and consider a bold alternative that is the slow death march of administrator-led, bigger is better, "modern" health care system.
I have met Dr. Gude and I would bet that a doctor managed system would get the losses cut pretty quickly--probably by firing the layer of highly paid administrators that have done such a poor hub of it. From this article:
Doctors have drafted a proposal to take over control of the hospital, Hurst said.
On Friday, Dr. James Gude, a pulmonary and critical care specialist with strong ties to Palm Drive, urged hospital officials not to close the facility.
“I think it will be a catastrophe,” Gude said Friday during a meeting at Palm Drive with hospital officials, including CEO Thomas Harlan.
In a preliminary proposal Gude drafted last week, he suggested that management of the Palm Drive facility could be put in the hands of the Palm Drive Health Care Foundation, a nonprofit founded in 1999 when a group of local investors rescued it from closure. The following year, voters created a public agency to buy the hospital and approved a property tax to pay for it.
Under Gude's proposal, inpatient services and the emergency department could be replaced with outpatient services and an urgent care center, possibly under current licensing.
“Rent it to us and let us run with it,” Gude said.