Dear Neighbor,

The Mendocino District Coast Hospital will report at its board of directors meeting tonight that it lost $669,000 in February, bringing the loss for the first 8 months of this fiscal year to $1.5 million. The "turnaround" that the hospital has been trumpeting for the last four months has vanished into a sea of red ink.

The meeting begins at 6:00 PM at the Redwood Room in the new wing of the coast hospital, 700 River Drive, Fort Bragg.

The Hospital Resources Council (www.savethehospital.org), of which I am a member, warned the board in January that the hospital costs were out of line and said that urgent, decisive action was required. The board rebuffed our recommendations saying that they had "turned the corner" and there was no urgency.

There is certainly urgency now.  The hospital has only a little over $1 million is reserve funds available to cover future losses. These could be used up in just a few months if nothing is done to get costs under control.I wish I could report that the board appears to have recognized that urgent action is needed, but at the finance committee meeting where this loss was first revealed, board members sat impassively. No effort was made to hold the administration accountable for the complete failure of its "restructuring" turnaround plan.At the planning committee meeting this week, the administration proposed ceasing obstetric deliveries as another "cost savings" measure -- meaning that all women on the coast would need to go to Ukiah or Willits for deliveries!At the same time that the hospital is proposing to shut down deliveries, it will vote tonight to pay an outside consultant the last $25,000 in a $75,000 contract "to study affiliation possibilities." Last month it spent $25,000 on another billing consultant. It is spending about $75,000 PER MONTH on five interim managers obtained through a professional services corporation. I urge you to attend the meeting and to call upon the board to move IMMEDIATELY to take the steps we recommended  in January, including moving to cost-based reimbursement from Medicare and quickly deciding on outside management services and/or affiliation. See: http://savethehospital.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=26

Time is very short. Your hospital is coming ever closer to shutting its doors. This does not need to happen, but it will happen unless you and others demand action from the board.

Please come to the meeting beginning at at 6:00 PM at the Redwood Room in the new wing of the coast hospital, 700 River Drive, Fort Bragg.

Sincerely,

Vince

Vince Taylor
On behalf of the Hospital Resource Council

The members of the Hospital Resource Council are Tom Birdsell, Mike Dell'Ara, Dr. Richard L. Miller, and Vince Taylor. The goal of the Council is to help resolve the current financial crisis and help transform our hospital into a model of excellence.