PAC wants hospital but doesn't want to help pay for it

Harry and the “Just Say No PAC” pretty well summed up their stance in the opening paragraph of Harry Hughes’ letter to the editor in the Sept. 10 Independent Record. They would like a hospital in our community, they just don't want to have to help pay for it. In fact, one of their group said that very thing at a hospital board meeting. That is their interpretation of “The Wyoming Way” as near as I can tell. As someone who was born in, raised in and lived nearly my whole life in Wyoming that interpretation is frankly kind of embarrassing to me. It pretty well defeats the image of an independent lifestyle. 

Another saying that you used to hear in Wyoming is “All hat and no cattle”. That usually referred to someone who dressed like a cowboy-generally with a nice new hat, but had no experience of actually being a cowboy, handling cattle or working on a ranch. Harry and his friends (one current, one past member of the EDC) have gone all over the place meeting with CEO's of these private hospitals and getting all these “proposals” about how they all would like to build a hospital here and take care of all our health needs without us having to contribute to the cost of a new or remodeled facility. And, they wonder why the “good old boy” network hasn't discussed any of these proposals in the meetings they have attended. 

A couple of reasons. First, nobody from any of those institutions has offered the board a proposal to build us a new hospital at “no cost”. Or, any other proposal for that matter. If we had received an offer you can rest assured it would be discussed extensively by the board and then with the County Commissioners who have the ultimate authority to transfer the operation of the hospital to a corporation. The board is fully aware of the direction healthcare is taking in terms of affiliation with other hospitals, but our first responsibility is to the patients our hospital serves and the community as a whole. 

Secondly, and of greater importance to the board, is the idea of “no cost” to the community. Our board takes the mission statement “Partnering with our Community for Quality Health and Healing” very seriously.  Any affiliation proposal would have to be explored in detail as to “no cost”. When you change from a community hospital to a corporate driven hospital you give up any local voice in how the hospital is managed. All the policies, budgets, and management decisions come from corporate headquarters (in Washakie County's case that's Phoenix, AZ), not the local board or even the commissioners. The Washakie County board is advisory only-no actual voice in the operation of the hospital. If the corporation decides that the hospital (or factory, franchise store, restaurant, etc.) is not profitable for the shareholders it can close it in a virtual heartbeat. Make no mistake, corporations don't care about the people who are our patients or the communities they live in-all that matters is the bottom line.

Think about the ripple effect the closing our hospital would have on the community. The “boom” would be the loss of a $6 Million dollar plus payroll in the community. The tsunami that followed would be the loss of other businesses and their employees, a decrease in school employees and their payroll, and a precipitous drop in property values. The community itself would be on life support.

Does that sound like “Economic Development” to you? 

Bill Williams