Vidant Health and NC NAACP reach agreement to keep Belhaven hospital open | Eastern North Carolina Now

News Release:

    Publisher's note: From all outward appearances, it does appear that Videant Health, the Town of Belhaven and the NAACP are all on the same page.

    Greenville, NC     This morning at 9 a.m. the leadership of Vidant Health, the NC Conference of Branches of the NAACP, and the NAACP Branches in Hyde and Beaufort Counties are pleased to announce that they have worked out an agreement to keep Vidant Pungo Hospital open.

    Vidant Pungo Hospital and its emergency facilities will remain open and operated by Vidant Health through July 1, 2014. Over the next three months, Vidant Health will work with the community to help them establish a representative community-based board that will accept full operating control of the hospital in a transfer by July 1, 2014.

    The employees of the hospital have been notified they will retain their positions through June 30, 2014, and we hope virtually all of them will retain their positions when the newly-formed Pungo District Hospital Board takes over the operation of the hospital by that date. We understand that the uncertainty surrounding the future of the hospital in Belhaven, N.C. has been stressful for the employees of the hospital and the community at large. We want to assure the hospital's employees and community that both parties are committed to the terms of this agreement.

    Vidant Health and the NC NAACP will jointly participate in a Community Service in Belhaven a week from today, April 3 at 6 p.m. We hope to be able to share with the public and the media more details of this wonderful news at that time.

    Today, however, let us rejoice. The Vidant Pungo Hospital is open. Vidant Health and local community leaders are working together to maintain and strengthen the present hospital, with the possibility of it being a model rural community hospital in the east, and perhaps in the nation.

    We wish to thank Mayor Adam O'Neal of Belhaven, health policy analyst Adam Linker from the N.C. Justice Center, and the Community Relations Service of the U.S. Department of Justice for their assistance in reaching this Agreement.

    Corporate Communications Specialist
     Strategic Development

      (252) 847-9390


    NC NAACP Communications

     (919) 682-4700