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"How Can We Trust You?" Hutcheson Supporters Ask North Georgia Government Officials
Walker, Catoosa, Dade Turning Prisoners Loose In Hospital To Avoid Paying Medical Bills, Emergency Room Worker Says
by Judy Frank
posted March 10, 2011

When a prisoner in Walker, Catoosa or Dade County needs medical care, a Hutcheson Medical Center emergency room worker said Thursday night, "They bring them in the emergency room in handcuffs and then. . . they take off the handcuffs and walk away and leave them."

"That way, they say, they're not responsible for the bills," Jan Fowler told the hundreds of people who showed up at a town hall meeting at The Colonnade in Ringgold to hear what's going to happen to the embattled Fort Oglethorpe hospital.

Sure, officials are now promising to do everything they can to ensure that Hutchson stays open, Ms. Fowler and other members of the crowd said, "but how can we trust you?"

Catoosa County Commission Chairman Keith Greene, Walker County Commissioner Bebe Heiskell and Dade County Executive Ted Rumley - who all seemed stunned to hear that sheriffs in their jurisdictions have been turning prisoners loose in the community hospital - reiterated their determination to keep the hospital operating.

It takes time, Commissioner Heiskell said, because "we want to make sure we do everything legally." She has contacted Georgia's attorney general to ask him exactly what steps county officials are empowered to take, she said, and hopes to have his answer by the end of this week.

Since Hutcheson is run by a corporate board, she said, "We couldn't do anything until we were invited in."

"We're here to save this hospital and keep it open, and that's what's going to happen," Executive Rumley declared, winning a round of applause from the crowd.

It's too soon to say exactly where and how to come up with the money to repay Hutcheson's $35 million debt, the three said.

However, they declared, it won't be by raising taxes.

If a proposal to merge Hutcheson with Erlanger becomes reality, they said, "Erlanger will come to the table with $20 million-plus."

Further, they noted, Erlanger has pledged to recruit 15 additional physicians to Hutcheson, which has been plagued by a rash of doctors leaving Fort Oglethorpe and going to Memorial or other hospitals to practice.

Members of the crowd, however, remained skeptical.

What Hutcheson really needs, several speakers said when their turns at the podium came, is to get rid of the various boards whose mismanagement has run the hospital into its current multi-million-dollar hole.

Employees at the hospital haven't gotten a raise for the past five years "because they said there wasn't any money," an indignant worker told the officials, but that didn't stop board members from giving one official a $59,000 bonus despite steadily declining revenues, patient load and staffing at Hutcheson.

Other members of the audience said they believe top administrators at the hospital are part of the problem, not the solution.

One woman, for example, said her son committed suicide while sitting in the emergency room waiting to be treated almost three years ago.

When she asked how such a thing could happen right under the eyes of trained medical personnel, she said, one administrator snapped, "Do you have any idea how many people commit suicide in emergency rooms in the United States?"

"I told her I wasn't worried about all the hospitals in the U.S.," the woman recalled, "I wanted to know about this hospital right here in Georgia."