County Commissions of Sins: Hospital Expansion

[XLFD]

Memorial Medical Center to have $14.5 Million for Expansions and Constructions

 

The obvious question to ask when you see a headline like that is to question where the money is coming from.  An entity called the Mason County Hospital Financing Authority (MCHFA) is to issue up to $19 million in bonds.  The MCHFA is an agency that needed the Mason County Commissioners approval to do so, which they agreed to do. 

The County, however has no obligation to the bonds, and the MCHFA has only limited debt obligations.  This means that no tax money should go towards the debt, these bonds being brought by banks and other investors looking for a safe investment at a fair rate of return.  It should also interest local folks with extra money who will benefit from not having to pay tax on their profits. 

The money is going to be made up through revenue generated by the hospital, which may be palatable, but one can sense it will be passed on to the consumers of the health care offered.  So is this expansion necessary?  Is the new $19 million debt going to be used cost effectively?  Will the new expansions pay for themselves over a fairly short time? 

Here's what's being improved/expanded at the hospital.  They are adding 15,800 sq.ft. of surger area (a fifth surgery room), and 17,700 sq. ft. of Emergency Room area.  This is what the public was told via the LDN the day before this was to come before them for a public hearing, followed by a vote. 

Early the next morning the Commissioners voted for it, and later that day on Tuesday, the LDN came out with some schematics of what the project was to look like.  Great pictures, and an ambitious project.  But:  Why was the public given less than one day's notice of this, with only a brief overview of what it was, and no idea of what it would look like until it passed?

 

This public hearing, much like many recent public hearings held by the City of Ludington, get put into the Daily News one day before the hearing, and I can't find the County's rule on this, but the State of Michigan and City of Ludington are supposed to give at least two week's notice on such public hearings via the newspaper(s).  Why do our so-called local leaders allowing this to happen? 

The reason may be more complex, but look at the fact that the head of Mason County and Ludington are $100,000+ "Managers" who could care less about democratic process and civil liberties of the people.  There is only more complexity added if the people are notified timely and allowed to look into what's happening.  Our County Manager can only point to the CARRE uprising to justify delays and secrecy.  Of course, the wind farm was allowed to blow due to the lack of information timely getting to the public.  This is how tyrannical governments operate.

 

Anyway, after the fact, we are told a fifth operating room is to be approved, and all the hospital needs is approval of the State for this.  Five operating rooms?  The population of the county has stagnated since the 1980's, why do we need more operating space?

 

I have yet been to the ER area when they've been even near full, never heard it reach that limit, but I do know that even with what they have now, it is often easy enough to be overlooked by the staff that forget about you.  Just wait till they add more.  They also may add a helipad to the east of the hospital, but that shouldn't cost too much. 

All in all, I think it might be ridiculous to expand at this time, and would love to see this $19 million put to some better use, but at least the citizens aren't paying, directly, for this.

 

But this is a Commission of Sins article for the Torch, and in those articles we expose the illegal staffing of boards, commissions, authorities, etc. in our community.  This is no different.  Here is the Articles of Incorporation for the MCHFA.  Note that Art. V, Sec. 1 says that 5 members are to be in the MCHFA Board, picked by the Mason County Commissioners.  Further sections note the dominance the MCC has over the MCHFA.  Less than a half year ago, four of these people were appointed or reappointed to the MCHFA as shown in this December 2011 and January 2012 MCC minutes:

You will notice that Lewis Squires was appointed, voted for himself and then signed the motion in December.  David Shilander is the President of the Carrom Company, Tim Hansen is the outgoing County Treasurer, and Susan Boes is another County Commissioner.  I haven't yet found the fifth, because this organization does operate so low under the radar.  But let's take a look at Lewis and Susan.  They serve both on the County Commission and the MCHFA, which operates under their direction. 

"Incompatible offices" means public offices held by a public official which, when the official is performing the duties of any of the public offices held by the official, results in any of the following with respect to those offices held:

(i) The subordination of 1 public office to another.

(ii) The supervision of 1 public office by another.

(iii) A breach of duty of public office

 

By MCL 15.182, this is disallowed.  A look at MCL 15.183 shows there is no exception for Hospital finance authorities.  Lewis, Susan, you are breaking the law, and you should remove yourself from this board. 

 

But nobody in the governing bodies of this area care whether they break the law, or whether they rush their projects through without a valid public hearing notice, and then delay the gentle souls that ask for information on what the public missed.  Standard operating procedures, Mason County style.

[XLFD]

One other thing related to this, but dealing with the City of Ludington, is that according to a notice in "what's happening" in last Saturday's Ludington Daily News, and a notice I saw on the courthouse wall on Monday posted on the previous Friday, was that there was supposed to be a Ludington City Council Meeting that Monday, 5-14-12.   That should have been a special meeting, since their meetings are posted as happening on the 7th and 21st this month. 

Yet there has never been any recap of what happened there, any other acknowledgment of what was to happen there, or why the City website has no agenda or mention of the event.  Did it take place, and when did it take place (the sources had different meeting times)?   Meanwhile, this Monday's meeting has very little taking place, according to the LDN. 

[XLFD]

I finally got word back from John Shay about last week's "meeting" today:

"This Special Meeting was originally scheduled for the purpose of the City Council to consider approval of a Temporary Construction Easement between the US Postal Service and the City, as some of the library construction work would have actually have had to take place on the Post Office’s property.

However, this Special Meeting was cancelled and never held because the Library ended up not needing the temporary easement as the construction company was able to complete the work it needed to get done in time for Friday’s dedication, without accessing the Post Office property."

Though this seems innocent enough, I am probing further to make sure everything was on the up and up.  The City Council can do anything else they might want to do (including holding a "public hearing", even if almost all of the public do not know about the 'special' meeting) at a regularly scheduled meeting.   

[XLFD]

Let's also not forget the significant expansion of Ludington's library that was just completed for under $2 million of donated funds.  It shows that the public will generally pitch in and help out for such endeavors as that was.  The library had made public their plans on what they wanted to accomplish, and through the charity of many, including the sizable donation from the Wilson's (no relation to Ludington CA Richard Merlin Wilson), was able to make this positive advance for the community.

The Hospital Finance Authority will spend 10 times the amount of money to add one operating room and increase the size of the emergency room, without making the case to the public that either is needed, while having at least two-fifths of that body serving illegally on that board.  Compare and contrast on your own. 

[Lisa O'Brien]

I don't think the hospital would have much luck with donations.  

[XLFD]

Who needs donations when you can raise thousands of dollars through running a few extra diagnostic checks that are either unnecessary or not approved by the patient, and charging their insurance what you can get away with?  That's just a dig at Mainstream Medicine, and not the MMC, by the way.

[XLFD]

A correction:  from a reliable source I was notified that 20% of the library's expansion money was bonded debt to be repaid back by millage, the rest was private. 

[XLFD]

I generally don't hold too much value in these evaluations, but according to HealthGrades, a leading provider of comprehensive information about physicians and hospitals, their latest nationwide ratings show a lot of West Michigan Hospitals... all to the south of us in the lists.  The lists involved patient-experience ratings and patient-safety ratings. 

Having transported many others to MMC, I can see them not scoring too high on the former; the several overall good experiences being ruined by a few bad experiences for those involved.  The latter rating I am presuming refer to patient complaints about unsafe procedures or praise about following safe procedures.  Never seen any extreme to complain or praise about at MMC, but I think it can definitely be improved.

http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/local/grand_rapids/Six-W-MI-hospital...

[XLFD]

I can't help but be amused by the double defeat of Squires and Boes who both ran against two other incumbent County Commissioners in the August primary election.  After their terms end at the end of the year, they can legitmately serve on the Mason County Hospital Finance Authority Board, without the conflicts of being a Commissioner.

In the meantime, enjoy the inconvenience of the construction work to add an operating room and expand the ER area when you visit the hospital.  It's really helping a lot of out-of-county contractors.