Silver Valley Hospital Bleeding Badly Vital Signs Not Good As Board Seeks Tax Levy Increase And Another Doctor As Solutions

Nine months after it opened to cheers, the former H.L. Day Medical Center is struggling to survive.

It’s losing $48,000 per month. It’s boosting taxes. Several top staffers have left, and the administrator’s looking for another job. A board member quit this month, saying the hospital can’t survive.

Amid all this, officials are desperately trying to hire another doctor.

“If we get another doctor recruited, our problems will be over, because we’ll get the cash flow,” said Robin Stanley, chairman of the hospital board. “If we don’t get another doctor, our problems will be over, too, because the hospital will close.”

“It is difficult,” he said.

Hospital administrator Bill Sexton paints a rosier picture, saying the balance sheet merely reflects the costs of reopening the hospital. Supplies had to be bought, the pharmacy stocked, and equipment tested, he said.

“We’re a start-up business,” he said. “I don’t know of any business that starts off making a profit.”

Meeting minutes, however, suggest Sexton’s more concerned than he’s letting on. And he confirmed that he, too, may soon leave.

Still, Sexton said he projects that revenue will catch up with spending by February. And he said the hospital could have a new doctor within a week.

“We’re still here,” he said. “I don’t think we ever misled anyone into thinking it would be easy.”

H.L. Day, renamed the Silver Valley Medical Center, opened in December after three years in mothballs. It closed, $400,000 in the red, in 1991.

Today, the 23-bed hospital offers surgery, emergency room care and obstetrics. The emergency room has treated more than 800 people, Sexton said, and the hospital staff has risen from 45 to 65, including three doctors. A baby was born there Monday, the 10th since the hospital reopened.

Hospital officials don’t deny they’ve had some problems. They say now that they were forced to re-open too early, under pressure from taxpayers angry at paying hospital taxes for a closed facility.

“We knew the clock was ticking, and we thought if we didn’t open then, we wouldn’t,” said Stanley.

Now the hospital is asking taxpayers to increase the tax levy from $170,134 to $185,000, out of a total budget of about $2.2 million. The budget hearing is today at noon at the hospital.

The tax hike, albeit small, has trained a spotlight on the hospital’s finances, and prompted board member Jack Hull to quit.

In his letter of resignation, Hull said he didn’t think the hospital could survive.

“Now I accept that fact,” he wrote, “and rather than continue to work towards further failure, I hereby resign.”

The hospital meeting minutes depict a board increasingly worried about its bottom line. May was “a distressful month,” with “concern for the future months.”

By August, officials were worried about the “deteriorating financial condition” of the hospital. “It was presented by Mr. Sexton that the financial trends are very concerning and that the hospital operation cannot be sustained long, given the current trends,” the minutes read.

Many Silver Valley residents are skeptical that the fledgling hospital can stay afloat. Some think the Silver Valley is too small to support the Silver Valley Medical Center and its longtime rival Shoshone Medical Center, eight miles away in Kellogg.

“Churches are merging, fraternal organizations have merged. The population has continued to decline,” said carpenter Jon Ruggles, who wants to combine the two hospital districts.

“You only have one (hospital) in Kootenai County,” he said.

“For a valley of about 15,000 population, two hospitals is just unheard of,” said Robert Morasko, chief executive officer of the Kellogg hospital. “There’s barely enough to support one hospital. Long term, two hospitals will not be successful.”

Stanley admits the criticism has made it difficult to recruit. Three months after the hospital’s chief financial officer quit, no replacement has been found.

As for doctors, the hospital’s chief of staff resigned in June, apparently wanting to return to the coast. That leaves the hospital with three doctors. Six potential recruits have been interviewed, but none has signed on.

“You don’t bring a doctor in and convince him to join the hospital when there’s petitions floating around to dissolve the district,” said Stanley.

Still, he and other officials say they’re confident the hospital will survive - and prosper.

“We don’t expect to fail, we expect to succeed,” Stanley said.

Sexton said a single family practitioner could bring in $600,000 to $800,000 per year. He met with another physician recently, and says the hospital could have another doctor within a week.

The hospital board has also voted to sell its clinic adjacent to the hospital, which is expected to net $200,000.

The most recent hearing on the hospital’s fate was in April, when dozens of people backed it, saying taxpayers should give the hospital a chance to prove itself.

Residents want a hospital nearby, Sexton said. A merger with Kellogg would likely be the end of full-scale hospital services there, he said, a fact Kellogg hospital officials acknowledge.

In Mullan, retired mining machinist Kenneth Smith still supports the hospital. Having a hospital close to home, he said, is well worth the $25 a year he pays for hospital tax.

“It isn’t enough on my taxes for it to hurt me,” he said.

Sexton, the hospital administrator, said most people feel that way.

“I think they still are cheering,” he said. “Some people are looking to stir the pot to see if they can’t ignite the politics that have been here for years. But rumors of our impending demise are greatly exaggerated.

“A year from now, I think you’ll see a viable hospital that’s doing more things,” he said. “It takes years to develop a hospital, not months, weeks or days.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Hearing planned A budget hearing for the Silver Valley Medical Center starts at noon today at the hospital. The hospital district wants to increase the tax levy from $170,134 to $185,000, out of a total budget of about $2.2 million.