A sad story of what happens when you privatize a major non-profit hospital

[Wonder Why]

Years ago, there were two big non-profit hospitals in Asheville, Mission and St. Joseph's. Many years ago, they joined forces and became one. Not necessarily bad thing for non-profits as they could work together for the common good. Being the only "big" city on Western NC, they were pretty dominant. In recent years, they began to absorb some of the businesses from smaller hospitals in other towns who either could not provide the facilities, afford the increasing expense of newer technology or had other problems. Not necessarily a good thing but again, a good non-profit should benefit, not hurt, a community. They were the go-to place for Cardiac care and had an excellent reputation.

Then the disaster began. They decided to sell out their community by selling to mega-private Hospital HCA. As a non-profit, they could not do that without approvals because of their non-profit status. With a lot of wheeler-dealing and negative input from the community, they sold Mission for $4B which was to be used for the community. I'm not sure the community ever really benefited but the sale surely did not. That's another issue.

As HCA took over, they dumped more work and lots of terminations on the staff in order to increase profitability. There were lots of complaints from doctors, nurses, staff and patients. Doctors, whose group was associated with them, left their orbit and joined that of the neighboring county's Pardee Hospital, a county-owned facility which didn't have the reputation of leadership in particular care but got awesome reviews of the quality and caring services they provided. As Pardee grew, becoming a highly rated hospital in Consumer Reports national list, so did Mission fall over the cliff.

Just today, there is an outstanding article in a local Henderson County newspaper which I would consider moderate to left in a sea of MAGAT voters trying to thread the fine line between not having enough income and telling the whole truth. It tells of what is happening now and is a warning, IMHO, what the future of privatization means. Please read it fully. It is not long but is well written and deserves recognition. The wrath of Medicare and multiple lawsuits are now in progress.

Mission faces deadline to fix deficiencies