City to explore legal action against Lower Keys Medical Center

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

 

Potentially opening a legal Pandora’s Box, Key West City Commissioners voted Aug. 16 to explore options that could force a courtroom battle between the city and the Lower Keys Medical Center (LKMC).

Fed up with numerous complaints against the Stock Island hospital from patients and doctors, commissioners voted 5-1 to (Commissioner Billy Wardlow was absent) support the newly-formed Committee to Rescue Our Hospital (CTROH), which is demanding that the hospital be converted back into a not-for-profit medical facility. The medical center is currently owned and operated by Community Health Systems (CHS), a Tennessee-based, publicly-traded health care company that owns 159 hospitals in the United States.

Although they passed the resolution supporting CTROH, commissioners took a step back by amending the resolution to allow city attorney Shawn Smith to explore all the options open to the city and report back to the commission before taking any action. The original resolution would have directed Smith to move ahead with a lawsuit to change the hospital from for-profit to a community owned and managed facility, obtain audits of hospital operations, insist that all hospital governing board meetings be public and that LKMC make public its plans to improve the one-star rating it recently received. A survey by Medicaid and Medicare of hospitals in the United States gave LKMC a rating of one out of five stars.

“The spotlight is on CHS in our community. Once the spotlight is off, what’s going to happen,” asked Commissioner Sam Kaufman, who sponsored the resolution. “What guarantees are there that all these promises being made are going to be kept… If we take this off the table, we lose tonight.”

Commissioner Richard Payne also wanted the resolution to force CHS to lower its prices for medical services, which some studies have shown to be higher than surrounding areas and the mainland.

“They [CHS] have been gouging and gouging, those grotesque prices that our people have to pay. Let’s not let them off the hook. Let’s hold their feet to the fire and take them down,” he said.

But Commissioner Margaret Romero, the lone vote against the resolution, cautioned against trying to manage hospital prices, pointing out that costs in Key West and the Lower Keys are often higher that on the mainland. And who would determine what a “fair” price for medical services is, she asked.

“This community hasn’t even been able to come up with the definition of affordable for housing. So how are we going to define that for medical costs, which the majority of us on this dais know nothing about,” Romero said

Even Commissioner Jimmy Weekley, who often spars with Romero, agreed that city officials cannot have any role in the actual management of LKMC.

“I can run a meat department,” he said, referring to his job as butcher at Fausto’s Food Palace in Key West. “But I sure as hell can’t run and operate [a hospital].”

Still, a majority of commissioners agreed that despite promises from the new interim CEO at the facility, Stephen Pennington, they aren’t willing to sit back and see what happens.

“Do I trust the hospital organization? No, I don’t,” said Mayor Craig Cates. “What they’ve done in the past, I can’t trust them.”

Pennington, who took over hospital operations when former CEO Nicky Will resigned July 15, acknowledged that service and patient care at the hospital has deteriorated over the past few years. He promised several changes involving itemized billing; improving relationships with local doctors, including not requiring them to sign a loyalty oath; and better communication with emergency room patients.

Pennington said CHS officials have promised to invest $15 million into LKMC and have already given raises to some hospital staff. The closed-door governing board meetings will now have a public portion at the beginning where the patients and staff can comment and ask questions. Pennington also repeated regrets that the hospital didn’t address patient concerns “as quickly as we should have.” But he also stood firm that CHS will not relinquish its lease on the building, which expires in April 2029.

“We hope there’s not litigation. If there is, we’ll defend and pursue our remedies in the court. But again, that’s not something we want to do,” he told the commission.

Similar to a special meeting on Aug. 11, multiple speakers went to the podium to speak both in favor and against the hospital. Several speakers are currently employees at LKMC, including Jonathan Bend, director of environmental services.

“The team sees what is happening at the hospital and they see the sweeping changes that are being made, not just short-term Band-Aids but true solutions that are going to help us on our journey to be the five-star hospital that this community deserves,” he said.

But other speakers disagreed.

“The hospital is dysfunctional. Everybody knows that,” said resident Ed Russo. “If this hospital is as good as people say it is, why is it in the bottom five percent?”

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