Noted mathematicians and historian Morris Kline once observed that the most fertile source of insight is hindsight.
Seven years after 58% of Oktibbeha County voters chose to retain ownership of OCH Regional Medical Center, county supervisors are again exploring the possibility of selling the county-owned hospital.
In making that case, the supervisors’ best argument may be what has – and hasn’t transpired – since that 2017 vote.
OCH operated at a combined $5.6 million deficit in Fiscal Years 2022 and 2023, CEO Jim Jackson told The Dispatch in February. It privatized its ambulance service in July 2023, with Jackson reporting it had been previously operating as much as $140,000 in the red annually, even after contributions from the county and Mississippi State University.
The hospital’s affiliation with the larger University of Mississippi Medical Center — which its leaders touted in 2017 as an alternative to a sale or lease that would improve services — hasn’t been the cure for what ails OCH.
The hospital has experienced fewer admissions, something all hospitals face as more and more procedures and treatments are performed at outpatient facilities. Staff shortage is a particular challenge for OCH. Finally, surgeries at OCH have fallen by 27% between 2018 and 2022, from 4,800 to 3,500.
Combined, those factors have created additional strain on the OCH budget.
It’s the third time in 12 years that supervisors have broached the idea of selling the hospital. Voters rejected that plan in 2012 and 2017. We wonder if the third time might produce a different outcome.
In a changing marketplace, county-owned hospitals throughout the state have been sold, including the 700-hundred bed Singing River Hospital System on the Coast, which was sold to Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System a year ago.
With 88 beds, OCH is the 36th largest hospital in the state. Hospitals of that size cannot benefit from the economy of scale that larger hospital systems enjoy. At a time in the industry where every cost-saving option is on the table, it makes sense for Oktibbeha County to revisit the idea of a sale.
If a sale goes to a referendum again, voters will have another advantage they didn’t have in 2017.
The 2017 referendum was an emotionally charged campaign where there was a scarcity of reliable information and a surplus of misinformation.
In 2017, voters rejected a due diligence study that recommended a sale of the hospital. On Thursday, supervisors voted to hire Raymond James Financial Services to perform a due diligence study of the county-owned hospital and develop recommendations.
It’s not a leap of imagination to expect that that study will also conclude that the best course of action is to sell the hospital.That argument is only strengthened by what has transpired over the past seven years.
We’ve had seven years of hindsight. That should provide the insight that 2017 voters did not have.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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