|
While the business community and several elected officials may be predicting the sky is about to fall in because Grady Memorial Hospital is running an enormous deficit again, some of us are more than skeptical. We have seen this alarm bell rung before. It’s a situation that keeps repeating itself and will continue to repeat itself until a wholesale revision is made of the structure of the hospital’s governing authority. Grady is certainly an institution in crisis. But then again, it almost always has been – at least in recent memory. Grady and Georgia are in a health care crisis – with potentially devastating side effects for all Georgians. In the State of Georgia, there exists currently only five trauma centers, (recently DeKalb Medical Center closed its trauma center) and an announcement by the trauma center in Rome, of the imminent closure of its trauma center will reduce this number to four. There now are no trauma centers for the citizens in DeKalb County except Grady. Only four trauma centers in all of Georgia is unacceptable in and by itself. We must keep the Grady trauma center operating. It is sorely needed for all Georgians. Grady has run operating deficits of enormous proportions for more than a decade. Red ink is now amassing in larger numbers – free treatment of illegal immigrants, and free treatment of the uninsured from all over Georgia, makes this definitely a Georgia problem. Last year, Grady treated approximately one million patients. Only 7 percent had private insurance. The Grady issue is no longer a Fulton-DeKalb County problem. It is estimated by the Greater Grady Task Force that 1 in 3 Georgians are currently uninsured. The Grady problem is a Georgia problem and our state leaders must resolve and resolve this immediately. Just because Grady needs a projected $50 million to balance its books this year doesn’t mean taxpayers should write this check. Instead, we have to tackle the root of the problem – Grady’s management and their current board of directors. No doubt about it, Grady is also plagued with abuses from vendor contracts, malpractice suits, expansion of its clinics and children’s unit, improper billing practices, and liberal policies for the Emory and Morehouse schools of medicine and their doctors who train at Grady of which Grady pays for their malpractice insurance and other benefits. But Grady is governed by a hospital authority composed of elected officials and other political appointees who have a history of making political decisions for Grady instead of making good health care management decisions for Grady. For example, recently Grady in the throes of a cash problem, hired a public relations firm headed by the wife of the late Maynard Jackson, the former mayor of Atlanta, at a rate of $250 and hour. The firm’s contract was to improve the board’s image. Obviously, this board had its priorities wrong. There are numerous examples of this type of waste that space will not allow to list. To save Grady from itself, we should petition the General Assembly immediately to dissolve the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority and replace it with a professional nonpolitical board that has the power to make decisions in the best interest of the hospital system and the taxpayers. In other major cities, Chicago for example, this is precisely what is being done. Unfortunately leaders on this issue, like DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones, have publicly opposed a Grady board that will operate professionally and make solid business decisions. A professional managed board that has been endorsed by the Metro Atlanta Chamber. With a nonpolitical board of professional managers, Grady could accomplish much-needed policy changes. For example, if it felt it has to close Grady clinics, such as the one at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, or privatize services, cut employees or contract specialized units such as cardiac care with competitors, then state and local politicians could not stand in the way. Grady needs tough-minded managers who can maneuver a survival strategy from an institution that has no long-term record of fiscal viability. In the meantime, all talk of a financial bailout should cease until we see progress in establishing a nonpolitical board running the hospital. Only then do we have the right to ask the state for help, and use any appropriations form the $600 million surplus currently in state coffers to assist Grady in any way. But right now, giving Grady more money is not the answer. Unless Grady can restructure itself, emerge from its political morass and find ways to live within its means, new money only begets the need for more money because there will never be enough money to prevent its demise. |
