Why is Pungo Hospital closed? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    Pungo Hospital closed its doors Tuesday (7-1-14). Whether it will be forever or whether the community that support keeping the hospital functioning will be successful in saving their hospital remains to be seen.

    University Health System, now Vidant, took over the Pungo Hospital nearly two years ago when the local management was unable to make a go of it. Vidant promised to not only provide continuing health care through Pungo to even expand services. Now, two years later Vidant is closing the hospital.

    Technically, a group of investors in Pantego Creek LLC own the hospital—at least the physical assets including the land and building. That group's governing board recently decided to not participate with the Town of Belhaven, Beaufort County and interested citizens in taking the operation back from Vidant and continuing to operate the Pungo Hospital. They reportedly propose to tear the building down. The hospital's doors remain closed.

    Vidant, on the other hand, proposes to open a 24/7 clinic that they contend will provide adequate health services. But that facility will not have an emergency room capable of treating emergency cases such as stroke victims, heart attack or trauma patients. Vidant proposes as an alternative to provide some funding to upgrade the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) to have paramedics on ambulances to respond to emergency calls to take patients to Beaufort Vidant. The hospital's doors remain closed.

    Concerned citizens fear the long ambulance ride to Beaufort, or even to Greenville, and want to keep an emergency room in Belhaven. Vidant claims it cannot make enough money to do that. The hospital's doors remain closed.

    "Saving our Hospital" has now become the battle cry for many concerned citizens in Hyde and northeastern Beaufort County. Lead by Belhaven Mayor Adam ONeal they have formed a non-profit corporation named Pungo District Hospital Corporation and have been trying to negotiate with Pantego Creek LLC and Vidant to take over the hospital. That's where the fog rolls in. The hospital's doors remain closed.

    The principals have been "negotiating" for weeks and have not been able to come up with a plan to keep the hospital operating. There is one group, the Pungo District Hospital Corporation, led by Mayor ONeal and community leaders, who want to at least try to operate Pungo to keep its designation as a hospital with an emergency room and thus qualify for Medicare and Medicaid funding. Others, including the LLC and Vidant say it can't be done. The hospital's doors remain closed.

    So Vidant announced that it would close Pungo July 1 and it has now done just that. Only now the lawyers have ridden into town. Vidant's got a gaggle of lawyers and the NAACP has now sent in a legal team and the NAACP has filed a formal Title VI complaint with the Justice Department asking DOJ to intervene under complex Federal regulations and obtain injunctive relief to enable the hospital to continue to operate. The DOJ did get a mediation process going but it has obviously not been successful at this point. The hospital's doors remain closed.

    The NAACP contends that the closing of Pungo will have a disparate impact on minorities and the Federal government must therefore intervene to protect access to health care for the poor people in the region. It remains to be seen if, or when DOJ will act. The hospital's doors remain closed.

    Here's where the fog gets really bad. It's not clear why the LLC and Vidant don't just let the newly formed group have the existing hospital and its resources and see if they can make a go of it. When you listen to the "insiders" at this point it gets terribly complicated and virtually impossible to ferret out the answer to the question: "What's the problem here?" Meanwhile, the hospital's doors remain closed.

    So, in summary, what you have is two groups saying the hospital can't make a go of it and a third group saying they want to give it a try. The first two groups won't let the group that want to see if they can make it work do so. While the groups throw rocks at each other—you've got it: The hospital's doors remain closed.

    We have been told by a number of people that there really is an explanation for why this mess exists. What we have been told is that Vidant does not want Pungo to continue to operate as a hospital simply because it would be a competitor. They prefer, under this theory, to funnel patients that would be served in Belhaven to their Vidant Beaufort facility in Washington or to their home facility in Greenville. A clinic would do just that. Under this theory it is contended that Vidant controls the Pantego LLC although Vidant now claims it does not. The hospital's doors remain closed.

    Commentary

    We don't pretend to know anything about all these Federal regulations on health care. But what we do know is that the people of northeast Beaufort County and Hyde County need quality health care. And adding an hour's additional ambulance ride does not, in our opinion, provide as good health care as an emergency room in Belhaven would.

    So Vidant can't make the bottom line work at Pungo. If you accept that Vidant has the right to divide its organization into whatever cost centers it chooses and if in doing so Pungo does not break even we accept that it is Vidant's right to walk away.

    But we don't accept that it is valid that Vidant hold Pungo responsible for being financially self-sufficient. Vidant is a huge conglomerate. Its elements that make millions of dollars do so because of the region's support. In fact, we would contend that Vidant sucks millions of health care dollars out of Hyde and Beaufort counties and those dollars show up on the books of Vidant Greenville.

    Look at it this way. If Vidant's bottom line were adjusted for only what it takes in from Pitt County it would certainly be a different picture. So if that is true, why does not Vidant channel some of those dollars that show up on its Greenville financial reports back to the communities from which the money came in the first place?

    We know, much of the actual money comes from Washington, DC but that misses the point. The federal revenue Vidant takes in at its Pitt county facilities comes in part because patients in Beaufort and Hyde counties choose to seek health care with Vidant. Thus, Vidant has, we feel, a duty to "give back" what it sucks out of the rural, poor regions.

    Secondly, we think the Pantego Creek LLC and Vidant should simply walk away from this mess and let the Pungo District Hospital Corporation see if it can make Pungo work. Forget all the obfuscation and haggling over legal mumbo-jumbo. Either run the place or walk away and let somebody else give it a try. At least the doors would not remain closed.