Yesterday's hearing between Vidant and Belhaven Citizens | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Yesterday was a big day for the people of Belhaven trying to save their hospital and medical care. Vidant is the Corporate Giant headquartered in Greenville, NC. They took over with big promises some 2 years ago. They did little but bide time until a decision to close the hospital down and demolish it.

    As you can imagine, local people who started their hospital right after WWII were not pleased. The great dilemma is rural and big Hyde County (the Swan Quarter Ferry to the Hatteras Island is their big enterprise drawing tourists) is without more than a scattered doctor's office and black bears! It can take an hour just to get to Belhaven, much less another 45 minutes to Washington and then another hour to Greenville.

    Already a lady has died waiting --- and others are frustrated with the overload to Emergency Rooms all over. This is most serious immediately to me since I am an equal distance from both Belhaven and Washington medical care.

    The great question is: How can big corporate medicine have the heart and integrity to lose money, if necessary, to treat the rural poor of America???

    Vidant operates as a Tax-Exempt, Non-Profit Corporation in NC. It has no stockholders to enrich. It has a CEO making millions and has more millions in its bank account along with assets in buildings and medical equipment worth more millions. We are talking billions in total assets.

    YET --- they can't lose a cent treating poor people spread over the swamps and marshes and monster fields of Hyde County????

    I was once on the Girl Scout Board as the Pastor of the Bishopville (SC) Baptist Church. It was an honor and dealt with making new experiences for girls. Their cookie sales brought in many thousands for us and we had a nice Bank Reserve.

    The camp needed new piers and renovations. Girls were stabbing their toes with splinters on that old and dilapidated thing we called a pier. The roofs on their cabins were in bad shape

    but we had enough money to run for a year or two if cookies sales busted! Our paid Executive was happy to have such security and a regular check. Some of the other Board Members were proud of their accomplishments. Nobody was focusing on giving girls a great camping experience beyond stuck feet and sleeping under a leak in summer rains!

    I put my influence and vote to build expensive concrete piers that never hurt a foot and last 100's of years. We had the bucks and the girls were our prime purpose of existence. Same with new roofing for cabins that also needed their screens replaced so girls did not go home sick and carrying malaria. It was just a matter of time if we didn't properly care for them!

    Here is the real questions for anyone wanting to operate as "Non-Profit / Tax-Exempt:"

    •  How can you NOT pay taxes and serve without some red ink?
    •  Have do you have big money in the bank --- if profit is not your motive
    •  Pay ungodly salaries to Executive Staff
    •  Pay the least to nurses and aides actually exposed to blood diseases and unknown sickness

    Service to society is the prime definition for a 501(c)3 corporation. Mega-bucks is a criterion for Wall Street and investors---not a church-type organization.