The Claiborne County Hospital board will re-start the process of choosing a management contract after a recent decision made by the Claiborne County Commission.

The hospital board recommended a new management contract with Mercy Health Partners to the commission over three months ago. When the commission finally voted on the contract, a motion to accept the contract failed because according to County Mayor Joe Duncan several commissioners wanted to hear from other interested entities.

Now, the hospital board must start the selection process from the beginning and allow any other interested entities a second chance to present contract proposals.

Hospital board member Rob Asbury said at the April board meeting that if the commission did deny the contract with Mercy, he wanted to make sure the board had a policy and sample proposal for all interested entities to follow this time.

Asbury was prepared for the commission’s decision and brought four sample proposals before the board at their May meeting. Asbury said he felt the samples he brought were good examples for the board to follow when establishing their own sample proposal.

The board discussed their next steps and possible items to include in the sample proposal and discussed issues they were concerned with in regards to the management of the hospital. Such issues included finances and the management of not only a hospital but a nursing home as well.

After further discussing the sample proposals board member Mike Robertson said he had received a letter from Pete DeBusk regarding his and Lincoln Memorial University’s position with the hospital and Mercy. Robertson said the letter was addressed to the entire board and that he was asked to read it at the board meeting.

The letter explained that DeBusk and Lincoln Memorial University at one time were interested in working with Mercy Health Partners to “get a new regional medical center in Claiborne County in connection with the medical school because we realize, ultimately, for a hospital to succeed, you have to receive graduate medical education dollars as a teaching facility and you have to have critical mass (patient load) to achieve this.”

In the letter, DeBusk further explained, “Please understand that this is our wish but, as you see, it has become very difficult for us to put this together.”

The letter said, “The only reason we got involved with Mercy Health Partners was because of their mission to care for the poor and underserved people of this region, as well as the fact they were managing the current hospital in Claiborne County. We did not want to interfere with this relationship.”

Once Robertson had read the letter the board briefly discussed its contents and then went back to discussing the sample proposals. The board decided to take some time to review two of the sample proposals that Asbury felt were the best and recess until Tues. May 26 at 6:00 p.m. before establishing their own proposal.

Also during the meeting the board heard the 2008 audit report from Dean Nebben of Burk, Pearlman, Nebben & Huggins, PLC. They heard bad news in the finance department from Controller Jessica Justice who informed the board that the hospital’s finances were still in the red. Justice reported that for the month of April the hospital had a combined net loss of $131,804 compared to a budgeted net income of $83,500. Justice explained that a big part of the problem came from charitable deductions and bad debt.

The board reviewed the Administrator’s report from Jack Bryan, of Mercy Health Partner’s and approved it and the financial report by a unanimous vote.

Since the medical staff only meets every other month, Dr. Richard Clark reported that there was no medical staff report because they did not meet this month.

The Claiborne County Hospital Board did not adjourn their May meeting, but recessed until Tues. May 26 at 6:00 p.m. They will reconvene to finalize the sample proposal and discuss the next steps they will take in the management contract process.