Mercy to hold forum on Perry County Memorial Hospital

On behalf of Mercy, we are encouraged by the level of interest in the future of Perry County Memorial Hospital. It is vital for a community to be engaged in discussions and debate that will impact everyone in the community, particularly access to health care. It is also important that we ensure Perry County has accurate information about Mercy and our potential role in caring for this community. Now that we have reached the part of this process where we are free to discuss the possibility of Mercy joining the Perry County community, we are eager to share how that might work.

Mercy currently operates 16 critical access hospitals like PCMH, including one critical access hospital that has been part of Mercy for more than 30 years. Critical access hospitals represent more than one third of the hospitals we lead, and more than half of all our hospitals are located in and serve rural communities. In each case, with these critical access hospitals, Mercy was invited to the community just as we have been invited for consideration to join the Perry County community. As many others have made clear, this invitation is to lease the hospital; there would be no change in ownership.

We have shown in each of the 16 critical access communities we serve that when Mercy becomes part of a new community, we keep care close to home while providing greater access to key health care services, while improving quality and lowering costs. This follows the tradition of the Sisters of Mercy, who asked for and received special permission to leave the convent so they could provide care where it was needed most. In America today, that's in rural communities and Mercy is very much now and forever vested in rural communities' success.

We have already begun the process of sharing how Mercy and Perry County align with shared culture and values. We have had the pleasure of meeting with some businesses, and we have always planned to speak with the citizens of Perry County publicly, once we were allowed to do so. We find many businesses prefer to meet at times that are convenient to them in a way that allows us to address their specific needs and concerns, some that are proprietary to their operations and cannot be discussed in a public forum. Likewise, there are many people who prefer the transparency of a public forum. We are pleased to invite all Perry County citizens who are interested in learning more to join us on Monday, Feb. 28 at the Knights of Columbus Hall for a community forum. We will provide a brief presentation starting at 6 p.m. to share how Mercy would enhance the excellent care already provided by Perry County Memorial Hospital. Doors to this community forum will open at 5 p.m., and we welcome everyone to join us and ask any questions they may have. We will be happy to answer questions before, during and after the presentation, and we look forward to sharing our track record of providing high quality care at less cost to our patients in their own community.

Eric Ammons is president of Mercy Hospital Jefferson.