UHS rally attracts hundreds | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Earlier this afternoon, hundreds of Beaufort Regional Health System employees met in a parking lot across from the hospital to boo and cheer as their peers mounted a makeshift soapbox to express their support for a BRHS affiliation with University Health Systems; and their disdain for an affiliation with Community Health Systems, along with whomever might support an affiliation with CHS.

    Rally moderator Derik Davis, an employee of Paul Funeral Home and resident of Washington, cheered at the mic for participants to maximize their media exposure by standing up and shouting "UHS! UHS!"

    "Get this, camera! Camera, get it! Stand up for our hospital! Stand up for our hospital! We're not blind! We hold the key!" said Davis.



    UHS-advocates have been ramping up such evangelizing since Monday, when the BRHS hospital board recommended that Beaufort County accept the affiliation proposal from CHS. The public's time of influence is limited. Beaufort County Board of Commissioners Chairman Jerry Langley said on Monday that the county hopes to choose the merger partner by the end of January.

    North Carolina General Statutes provided for two public hearings, which allowed any member of the public, Beaufort County resident or not, to voice their opinions on the Request For Proposals, as well as the Proposals, themselves. According to Langley, at Friday night's special-called commissioner meeting, there will not be a third designated public hearing. The public will, however, have the option to speak before the commissioners during the 20-minute public comments section of the board's regularly scheduled monthly meeting, set for Monday.



    The fact that time is running short has increased the desperation and determination of the UHS supporters, and emotions were high at today's rally.

    "Folks we're in a battle. We're in a tremendous fight and we're in the fourteenth round of a fifteen round battle," said rally speaker Tomp Litchfield, a Realtor from Washington.

    UHS-supporters have been inundating their county representatives with frantic telephone calls, e-mails and surprise encounters, according to several commissioners. They were encouraged to continue to do so at today's rally.

    "I urge to please call all the county commissioners, even the ones you know that are going to vote against you. Call them and let them know how you feel," said Litchfield.

    Litchfield went on to push UHS-supporters to discourage CHS from following through with its bid.

    "I also encourage you to please write the people at CHS and thank them for their interest in Beaufort County, in our Beaufort County hospital; but let them know we don't think that they will do well, and we don't want 'em," said Litchfield.



    CHS's net offer is $9,451,029 more than the UHS offer, according to a financial analysis of the proposals prepared by BRHS Chief Financial Officer Dick Reif. Furthermore, UHS will assume ownership of the currently $50,964,372 local hospital facility, for no extra consideration, at the end of its 30-year lease. Alternatively, CHS will transition ownership of the hospital back to Beaufort County at the end of its 30-year lease. Therefore, in raw dollars, the CHS offer $60,415,401 stronger than the UHS offer.



    The force for a merger with UHS has been building behind closed doors since even before the BRHS hospital board's Apr. 27, 2010, decision to hire an outside company to help begin the search for prospective affiliates. Shortly after the BRHS hospital board went public with this search, former-Chief of Staff Thomas Penders, current-Chief of Staff Rachel McCarter and nine other doctors sent former-BRHS hospital board chairman Sandy Hardy a letter supporting hospital consolidation. The next month, in an interview with the Washington Daily News, Hardy came out in full support for a merger with University Health Systems; and on June 29, presided over a management agreement of UHS, which created a conflict of interest during the bid process and had to be reversed.

    Penders--who resigned as BRHS Chief of Staff in late 2010 and now works at Pitt County Memorial Hospital--spoke, at today's rally, to the early-2010, upper-level push toward UHS. He also implied that the insertion of competition into the bidding process, as well as Monday's vote for CHS, were the products of a conspiracy.

    "Our natural merger partner immediately came to mind as University Health Systems," said Penders. "So, when it suddenly became clear that certain members of the board were not on board on this, we referred to them as just very curious. And then what happened systematically is that members of the board who weren't agreeing that we should merge with UHS were systematically replaced by people who were carefully vetted."

    Despite Penders' assertions, two of these three replacements actually voted in favor of merging with UHS: Brenda Peacock and Susan Gray for UHS; Howard Cadmus for CHS.