For those who are concerned about what Baptist Memorial Health Care Corporation might do if it purchases OCH Regional Medical Center, system President and CEO Jason Little suggested to look at the system’s past to get an idea of OCH’s possible future.

Little spoke to a few dozen people at the Greensboro Center Thursday evening during a roughly 45-minute informational forum about Baptist.

Throughout his presentation, Little pointed to work Baptist has done in communities to improve health care.

The nonprofit system is one of two, along with North Mississippi Health Services, to submit bids to Oktibbeha County to purchase OCH. Voters will decide in a countywide Nov. 7 referendum whether to allow county supervisors to proceed with a possible sale of the 96-bed facility.

Baptist, with its flagship hospital in Memphis, has 21 hospitals across Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansans, with a new hospital under construction in Crittenden County, Arkansas.

Baptist acquired the former Oxford Lafayette Medical Center in 1989 on a 30-year lease — state law at the time only allowed leasing hospitals, rather than purchasing them.

Back then, the hospital had 32 physicians and 420 employees.

Since, Baptist has built a 217-bed hospital — Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi — and has grown the hospital’s net operating revenues from $23 million in 1985 to $185 million last year.

The number of physicians has tripled, from 32 to 98 and staffing has jumped from 470 employees to 874. Admissions, surgeries and birth procedures have grown. Emergency room visits have nearly tripled, from 15,119 in 1989 to 40,107 in 2016.

Baptist also opened a cancer center there in 2002.

“But we weren’t finished,” Little said. “The day after you hold your referendum, on November 8, we’ll have a ribbon cutting for … a $310 million brand new hospital in Oxford just across the street from the one I showed you pictures of a few moments ago.”

The new hospital, Little said, will begin taking patients at the end of November.

Little spoke also about Baptist’s history in Columbus. Baptist leased the former Golden Triangle Regional Medical Center in 1993 to much public furor in Lowndes County. At the time, the hospital had 96 physicians and 306 beds. Baptist eventually purchased the hospital for $30 million in 2006.

Today, Little said, Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle is the largest private employer in the Golden Triangle, with 1,042 employees. The hospital has 152 physicians and 315 beds.

Baptist has 10 hospitals in Mississippi, with more than 1,500 beds and 60,000 admissions per year. The system, the largest in Mississippi, has 7,000 employees across the state and generates $1.2 billion in revenue in Mississippi. Baptist, as a whole system, generated $2.78 billion in revenue last year.

“For the Mid-South to thrive, we believed that all communities needed to thrive,” Little said. “In any community in Mississippi, rural or otherwise, often times the anchor tenant is health care — it’s the local hospital. And regardless of which side of the equation you’re on tonight, you believe that.

“Hospitals are economic drivers, and it’s been Baptist’s intention throughout our history to go in and partner with communities so that we can be everything that community wants to be, from an economic development standpoint and from a health care standpoint,” he added.

OCH response

Harry Holliday, a physician at OCH, said Baptist and North Mississippi, which presented its case on Wednesday, both had polished presentations. However, he said he wondered about the details of what both companies wanted to do locally, should either acquire OCH.

“Right now they’re just throwing out proposals,” he said. “There’s no strong bid, there’s no contracts there’s nothing solid that either one is really putting out there. That’s where the issue is — right now we have a very good hospital system here and I’d hate to see it go for pennies on the dollar for somebody that’s buying at a fire sale.”

He said large systems can provide more services, but that doesn’t necessarily mean those services will be provided locally.

“There were a lot of generalities and a lot about their overall systems, but no real specifics of what they would do for the community here,” Holliday said. “That’s what’s most important — what do we do for our community and what do we do to provide the most services here for Oktibbeha County and the surrounding area that we serve.”

Little, when asked, said Baptist isn’t ready to discuss potential plans for OCH yet.

“Our goal right now is for OCH to pick the best partner,” Little said.

Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.