CHAMBER SURVEYS MEMBERS ON MERGER

The Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce wants to know how its members feel about the proposed merger of the city's two hospitals.

The chamber has mailed surveys to its more than 1,200 members to get their input on the proposed merger of Southeast Missouri Hospital and St. Francis Medical Center.

The chamber's board of directors has not taken a position on the proposed merger, and results of the survey may not lead to an endorsement or rejection of the proposal, said chamber president John Mehner.

"It was not stated with any precursor as to whether or not the results would lead to a position," Mehner said. "I think at this point the board is saying, we need to know what our members think."

The chamber has hosted two informational meetings on the proposed merger, the hospitals have held one town hall meeting and the Missouri attorney general's office has held a public hearing on it.

Doug Groesbeck, chairman of the chamber's board and a member of St. Francis Medical Center's board, said the merger issue is important enough to local business that the chamber needs to know how business leaders feel about it.

"We felt that with the significance of this proposed hospital merger and the impact that it would have on the community and the patients that are served, we needed to take the extra step to find our what we could about how our membership felt on both sides of the issue," Groesbeck said.

The survey lets respondents choose between being in support, opposed or undecided on the merger question, with space for additional comments.

The last time the chamber surveyed its membership was on the question of whether to allow riverboat gambling in the city, Groesbeck said.

"There's a potential here to change what has been a history for 70-plus years of having two major hospitals in one town," he said. "Coupled with that is there are so many questions that people have had that it has become somewhat of a complex issue."

The hospitals want to merge to strengthen their competitive position in the regional market, maintain quality services and control costs.

They project $44.4 million in savings if the merger is approved.

As part of the merger, the hospitals are willing to establish a community health foundation to address public health issues and to enter into a consent decree with the Missouri attorney general to guarantee the projected savings.