BRHS negotiating team to deliver recommendation Monday | Eastern North Carolina Now

    More than just roads and lawns will be freezing over this week, if at its Dec. 27 meeting, the Beaufort Regional Health System hospital board acts on the advice of the BRHS negotiating team and arrives at a decision on whether or not to merge the hospital with a specific affiliation partner.

    The negotiating team is poised to deliver such advice at the Dec. 27 meeting, said three out of four of its members--BRHS hospital board Vice Chairwoman Brenda Peacock, BRHS hospital board Secretary Hood Richardson and BRHS hospital board member Suzanne Gray--during telephone interviews this afternoon.

    "I know our plan is to have a decision at that time," said Peacock. "We pray that it is very, very close to actually happening."

    The negotiating team will either recommend negotiating a lease offer with one of the following three institutions: Greenville-based University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina, Community Health Systems Inc. of Brentwood, Tenn., and LHP Hospital Group of Plano, Texas; or it could recommend that BRHS retain independence.

    "I don't know that independence is off the table," said Gray. "I think we are looking at all possibilities."

    In the event that the BRHS hospital board approves a final recommendation on Monday, the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners is tentatively scheduled to meet in the Superior Courtroom at the Beaufort County Courthouse Monday night at 7 p.m., "to discuss the process of reviewing the bids and the recommendation from the hospital commissioners," said Beaufort County Commissioner and Vice Chairman Stan Deatherage, in a telephone interview this afternoon.

    The Beaufort County Board of Commissioners, as acting owner of the hospital's assets, is the entity charged with making the final decision on the future of BRHS.

    "We want to emphasize that the public can attend; but will not have a chance to comment," said Deatherage.

    Since April 2010, when the BRHS hospital board began public discussions on a possible merger, a very loud, yet exclusive, faction of the public has been clamoring for a hurried affiliation with UHS. Beaufort County Commissioners Jay McRoy and Al Klemm, and sometimes Robert Cayton, similarly attempted to spur and direct negotiations; while the other four commissioners held fast to the pre-determined Request For Proposal process.

    "The process is working itself out," said Richardson, this afternoon. "The people who don't have any information need to calm down."

    If the BRHS hospital board succeeds in delivering its recommendation to the county board by Dec. 27, it will not be too far off schedule by its own standards. According to the Request For Proposals that BRHS sent to its 14 potential partners on July 21, the BRHS hospital board estimated that the 20-year lease would begin "on or about" Dec. 1, 2010. The county board, however, on June 29, directed the BRHS hospital board to deliver their recommendation within 120 days, or by Oct. 29. Obviously, that date has long-since passed.

    When the BRHS hospital board received the proposals on Sept. 9, there were four bidders. However, the offer from Brim Healthcare of Brentwood, Tenn., the fourth BRHS-bidder, to establish a management services arrangement, has been removed from negotiations.

    Richardson said that the negotiating team will have met twice with UHS, CHS and LHP Hospital Group as of the Dec. 27 hospital board meeting. He said that the terms of each institution's bid were slightly altered by each meeting, but would not expound on the exact changes.

    The BRHS hospital board met Tuesday, in a special-called, closed-session meeting, for the purpose of reviewing the revised proposals with the board's attorney, according to Director of Marketing and Public Relations Pam Shadle.

    The fourth negotiating-team member, BRHS hospital board Chairwoman Alice Mills Sadler, could not be reached for comment.