Perry County should trust collective wisdom on hospital affiliation

Two years ago, I was asked if I would volunteer my time to serve on the Perry County Health System Board, in part due to my background in health care. I am a Registered Respiratory Therapist, inactive now, and I started the Respiratory Therapy Department at Perry County Memorial Hospital. After I left the hospital, I went into health care sales and services. I dedicated the early years of my career to PCHS, and I'm now dedicating time at the end of my career to PCHS.

I have the utmost respect for all of the employees who make a lifelong career of caring for the sick and injured, especially since they are working in the community where they live. I understand that the suffering they witness is often the suffering of someone they know.

I think there have been many accusations, insinuations, speculations and misinformation being thrown around about this potential affiliation process. I want to explain that this process was not started by our hospital or health system board. It started after we were approached by two Cape hospitals, and after those conversations we felt a responsibility to seek out if there were other interested health systems out there. After initial conversations, we sent all three systems the same request for information to begin the process of gathering information and weighing the many factors involved in a decision of this importance.

For those of you who say we should slow down this process, please know that you would put your hospital in danger by dragging this out. The longer we wait, and with more accusations and mud being slung, the less attractive our community looks to a potential affiliation partner. We do not want to reduce our negotiation power. We are currently in a position of strength.

And please have some empathy for our employees and physicians. Going through this turbulence is extremely unsettling and unnerving for them. We are talking about their professional careers of caring for you. How long must we put them through this? Our employees and our physicians are our hospital; if we lose them due to this turbulence, we have lost our hospital.

I believe that the majority of our physicians, our employees, our administration, and both boards are in agreement as to how we best evaluate the potential affiliate partners and how this process will provide the best outcome for Perry County Health System, and particularly our hospital. I hope we can come together as a community and trust the collective wisdom of those who have dedicated their lives to caring for all of us.

No one on the health system board stands to gain anything financially by selecting one health system over another. We only have one special interest in mind: Yours.

Kay Taylor is treasurer of the Perry County Health System Board and vice president of the finance committee.