Despite Money Pledged, Hospital’s Full Return Iffy, Judge & Mayor Say

County Judge Dan Mueller and La Grange Mayor Jan Dockery say they found “substantial” private funding to help return St. Mark’s Medical Center to a fully functioning hospital, but the donors are not willing to contribute under the current hospital management.

Mueller and Dockery issued a joint statement on Wednesday, April 12, concerning their efforts to unwind St. Mark’s decision to convert to a Rural Emergency Hospital (REH). The designation will bring the debt-laden hospital much-needed revenue. But to qualify for the designation, St. Mark’s had to eliminate inpatient and surgical services.

“Our hopes of having a ‘full’ in-patient hospital in La Grange have dwindled,” the statement said.

Mueller and Dockery said they met with St. Mark’s CEO and St. Mark’s Board Chairman Dudley Piland on Jan. 20. At that meeting, Mueller and Dockery said the two hospital leaders told them about the plan to convert to the REH designation.

“On three separate dates, we have met with Mark Kimball and Dudley Piland to discuss the possibilities of keeping the hospital operating as a ‘full’ in-patient hospital,” the statement said.

“We met with State Senator Lois Kolkhorst. We met with representatives of Congressman Michael Mc-Caul and U.S. Senator John Cornyn. We met with an attorney in Austin who specializes in assisting rural hospitals. We met with representatives of the Center for Medicare Services. These representatives work in Dallas, Denver and Washington D.C. We located a prospective hospital management team that works with struggling rural hospitals on several occasions. We were very close to reaching an agreement with them. They felt the hospital could be a success. We secured funding that would have helped us have a hospital. All this work was done at no expense to the taxpayers.” In an interview last Thursday, Mueller declined to discuss specifics of the funding he and Dockery secured.

“I don’t want to elaborate on it, but I did have some people who stepped up substantial amounts,” Mueller said.

“Nobody is going to put any money in with the management that’s there,” Dockery told the Record in an interview last Friday. “We can’t blame them. Why would you take good, hard-earned money and put it into something you have had feelings about?”

Last week’s joint statement from the two leaders painted a gloomy picture of the hospital’s future.

“Our efforts to get this hospital back open and into the hands of local people here in La Grange and Fayette County have been unsuccessful,” the statement said. “We cannot get back local control. Our frustrations of being unable to have a ‘full’ in-patient hospital in La Grange are equaled to the frustrations we feel about the fact that the hospital has been mismanaged for a number of recent years.”

The Record asked Mueller whether he and Dockery have exhausted their efforts regarding the hospital.

“I think we’ve tried every avenue and we’ve been unsuccessful,” Mueller said.

The REH designation provides the hospital with enhanced Medicare reimbursements along with a roughly $272,000 monthly payment. However, the REH designation prohibits the hospital from performing inpatient services.

The mortgage debt on St. Mark’s Medical Center in La Grange stands at around $13 million. Jim Kendrick, CEO of Community Hospital Corporation, the company that manages St. Mark’s, told the Fayette County Commissioners Court on March 9 that the hospital does not have enough revenue to pay the mortgage, even with the boost in funding from the REH designation.

“With the $272,000 going into operations, after we pay the bills, what’s left at the end of the year won’t be enough to service the debt,” Kendrick said at the March 9 meeting.

Dockery said she remains hopeful.

“I still feel like something is going to come through,” she said in the interview last Friday. “Maybe (CHC) decides to wake up, and maybe they’ll have a little heart and decide they need to walk away. I feel like something could still happen.”

Lots of folks are asking whether the hospital could alleviate its debts through bankruptcy. The Record reached out to Kimball last week to ask about the possibility of a reorganization under bankruptcy. Kimball said he would provide a statement concerning bankruptcy this week. Look for his response in an upcoming edition.