Edwin M. Hardy is a member of the Beaufort Regional Health System’s Board of Directors. He is a former chairman of that board.

The WDN has improved recently in its community reporting and function; and, while I greatly appreciate the coverage the WDN has given the hospital issue, I have some differences that I would like to address.

Alice Mills Sadler, the current hospital board chairwoman, was quoted in the article of March 9, 2011, as having said, “The bad news is we should have sought outside assistance from an entity sooner.”

The CEO, the CFO, a majority of the board and I suggested this very idea to her in January 2010, well over a year ago. We suggested affiliation with a larger health-care entity as soon as possible. Her response was to ask why she hadn’t been told earlier the hospital was in a precarious financial situation. A board member at that meeting told her that is all we have heard at every financial report at the monthly board meetings in the past year. Also, the hospital has had an outside entity do an audit every year. Apparently, she did not know these things, but if so, it is due to her own actions, or lack thereof. The problem was Ms. Sadler has rarely shown up for meetings, and when she did, she arrived late and left early. She did not begin to somewhat regularly attend meetings until she became chairman.

The audit shows that the “cost containment” committee implemented in February 2010 did not help the situation. According to the audit, costs increased hundreds of thousands of dollars between the 2009 fiscal year and the 2010 fiscal year. The current majority on the board spent almost double the amount of the costs of last year’s audit for the same quality audit this year.

Jerry Langley, chairman of the county commissioners, called the most-experienced board members and me “straight up evil” when, in July 2010, we tried to get educated, trained and qualified management at the hospital with the help of University Health Systems (UHS) after the resignation of the former CEO. Then there was a change in the board with new members and the current majority took over; they reversed what we had tried to do. I then resigned as chairman, but remained on the board as a regular member.

I have in my possession a letter from Jerry Langley to the CEO of UHS dated Jan. 24, 2011, where he asks UHS to come in and manage the hospital within 14 days. Then the same letter asks if UHS can come in sooner than 14 days and let the paperwork be done later. Amazingly, this is exactly what I tried to do six months earlier. I am glad he now agrees with what he said is “straight up evil.”

The current board chairwoman and finance chairman chose the current CEO who has absolutely no education in hospital management. I believe she was chosen because she does whatever they tell her. UHS helped me find a very qualified candidate for interim CEO who would now have cost less than what will be spent on the current CEO.

The current administration, board chairwoman and finance chairman have not been conducting regular board meetings for several months. We now have meetings on about 24-hours notice with only one or two agenda items. Accrediting and reappointing health-care professionals has been done by e-mail for several months. No monthly financial report has been issued this fiscal year. When out of great concern I asked the CFO for the monthly financial reports for the last several months, he refused to meet with me, telling me through a receptionist that he was busy. I then asked for the monthly reports through that receptionist; he told me through the receptionist the monthly financial reports have not been issued. Once again, through the receptionist, I asked why. Through the receptionist, he said they are busy on the audit. He wasn’t too busy to talk through a receptionist. We are almost halfway through a fiscal year and I cannot remember seeing a monthly financial report. The hospital has had an audit every year (by an outside entity) and we still always produced monthly financial reports throughout the audit. This pitiful excuse and irresponsibility is unacceptable.

In fact, every month for the past seven years that I have been on the hospital board, I have given the monthly financial statements to county Commissioner Hood Richardson until he was appointed to the board and got them himself. I never heard any complaint or advice from him about the hospital finances during that time. And, yes, he got the financials even while we were doing the audit by an outside agency each year.

There are currently problems at the hospital that potentially affect our ability to collect reimbursements from Medicare. If this occurs, the hospital would be in much worse financial shape than it is now. I believe it would be unsustainable. The hospital has never had any problem with the reimbursements from the government being in jeopardy as it is now. Hopefully, these matters will be resolved. I feel these problems would not have arisen with properly qualified, trained and proficient management. However, be assured the quality of care as provided by the physicians and nurses at the hospital and in our community is still the same high-quality care that our community has had in the past. We are very fortunate to have the excellent quality of physicians and nurses that we do have.

The hospital administration and board members currently in control have irresponsibly dragged this situation on way too long against the advice of the former CEO, CFO and the most-experienced board members. The situation is now dire, and I feel compelled to tell the community they must implore the county commissioners to act NOW to bring UHS here. I am sorry this letter may hurt some feelings, but I feel absolutely compelled to inform the public as it is their health care at risk. The county commissioners need to close the UHS deal ASAP! The community needs to demand the county commissioners do it now.

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