By Dewey Terrill
JC Post
JUNCTION CITY —Geary County Commissioners outlined the plan Thursday night to save Geary Community Hospital through an agreement with Stormont Vail Health. That company will oversee the operations at the hospital completely in January, and they are already providing assistance.
Some of the key points during a public presentation at the C.L. Hoover Opera House included the fact that GCH has been operating at a one million dollar per month deficit. That is expected to change in the future.
Stormont Vail will install the record management billing system called Epic, which should lead to monetary savings, will schedule more surgeries including nine yesterday ( Thursday ) alone, and will employ some of their own doctors in the emergency room. Stormont will be investing $20 million of their own money into the GCH facility for infrastructure improvements over the next five years. Geary County will issue revenue bonds totaling approximately $32 million to cover existing debt, short term operational funds and infrastructure improvements needed this year and money for $20 million in future infrastructure improvements. County debt would be retired in 2048.
All current GCH employees are being given the opportunity to interview for jobs if they would like to remain at the hospital, and there is no reason to expect they would not be retained.
Annual property taxes to support the hospital will not increase.
Commissioner Keith Ascher told the audience at the Opera House this has been a long struggle but officials wanted to be sure that they had all the i's dotted and t's crossed before they could share information with the public.
During the process to make a future decision on the hospital, Commissioner Trish Giordano commented that they had three options. They included operating at a $1 million per month deficit, closing the hospital but with debt the building couldn't be reopened until grandfathered code violations were addressed, or they could partner with someone. The latter option was chosen.
The end goal was to ensure Junction City still has a hospital.