HOSPITAL VOTES TO GO PRIVATE; PERRY MEMORIAL PLAN NEEDS COUNTY'S OK

PERRYVILLE -- Perry County Memorial Hospital's board of directors voted Monday night to make the hospital a private institution.

Bill Wingerter, chairman of the board, directed hospital administrator Ralph Paulding to and proceed with making the hospital private.

Before the public, not-for-profit hospital can make the transition, the Perry County Commission must approve it. Paulding said he hopes to take the proposal to the commission Thursday.

If the commission approves the plan, the hospital could be a private institution by the end of May.

After meeting with the attorney handling the transition, Paulding said: "I learned some things. I think our major concern pretty much is how to put the board together on the private side."

Of great interest to the hospital board and the County Commission is who would serve on the newly organized hospital board.

The current board is elected. If the hospital becomes private, a new board of directors would be formed, and two of its five members would be from the current board.

Monday night the board went into executive session to discuss which board members should serve on the new private board.

Wingerter said after the closed meeting that two tentative candidates were chosen, but they must be approved by the County Commission.

Those two members would choose a third at-large member. Then the three-person board would choose the final two members to make up the private board of directors, Paulding explained.

In open session, Paulding suggested that Ronald Hohenadel, currently the vice chairman of the board, be appointed the at-large member. Hohenadel's elected term on the board ends in April, and he will not be seeking re-election.

With Hohenadel and two incumbents on the new board, "we'll have some well-educated board members that will be able to move fairly quickly, particularly in such a volatile environment with all the changes we're going through," he said.

Presiding Commissioner Karl Klaus has indicated he wants at least three of the new board's members to be accountable to the voters.

The private board of directors would always include two members from the elected board, Paulding said.