Hospital lease awaits public comment

PANAMA CITY — Bay County Commissioners will receive public input on the lease of Bay Medical Center to a joint venture group Feb. 15-16 at 6 p.m. in the Government Center on 11th Street.

After months of wrangling, the final version of the lease between Bay Medical Center, Sacred Heart Health System and LHP Hospital Group was expected to be made public Tuesday afternoon. However, it was delayed and is now expected to be delivered to the county Wednesday.

The document included many of the changes asked for by Bay County Commissioners and drafted in the “red-line” document released two weeks ago, as well as edits discussed during a joint workshop of the Bay Medical Center Board of Trustees and County Commission last week.

Commissioner Mike Thomas said he has been told by hospital officials and the county’s consulting group, FirstSouthwest, if action is not taken toward a long-term resolution of Bay Medical’s debt they will be in default on their loan and charged elevated interest rates by the end of the month.

A default would compound Bay Medical’s already precarious financial situation and endanger the quality of care and level of indigent care, Thomas said.

“I don’t know that any of us are prepared to vote on this, but we’re getting to a time where I think we will have to make that decision,” he said.

Thomas made the motion to set the dates of the public hearing and decide after the meeting Feb. 16 whether to put the lease vote on the agenda of the board’s regular meeting Feb. 21. He was supported by commissioners Mike Nelson and Bill Dozier. Commissioner Guy Tunnell was absent. Chairman George Gainer was vehemently opposed.

Prior to the vote, Gainer said commissioners have not received the final document and even if it is delivered by the end of the day like hospital officials promised, a week is not enough time to vet it entirely. All of the commissioners have complained about being left out of the negotiating process until the last minute, but Gainer suggested there was something sinister to the rush.

“I feel like we’re being headed exactly where they intended to head us in the first place to have us totally unprepared,” he said. “… Now we’re being asked, in a week, to hold a public hearing on a contract we don’t even know what it will look like. … I don’t think it would be the right thing for this board to do. I don’t think we can do this in a week when it’s taken everyone else so long.”

Commissioner Bill Dozier said it was never too early to have public input.

“We have all made the comment that we thought we were brought in on this late and I, too, believe we were brought in on it late,” Thomas said. “Fortunately, our staff has done a great job on this. … I think they’ve pretty much caught us up to where we need to be to make a vote. I don’t know what the vote will be, because, like I said, we all have some problems with this.”

In other business, commissioners:

l Awarded checks to the employee-chosen charities of Relay for Life, Covenant Hospice and St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital from the proceeds of the haunted hay ride in October.

l Passed a resolution supporting home rule of the regional workforce boards.

l Approved the Florida Department of Transportation’s planned closing of the railroad crossing on Main Street in Fountain.