Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Soapbox Soapbox: Grady deserves better treatment from the state
Posted by Soapbox Editor on Wed, Nov 28, 2007 at 9:30 PM
By Emma Darnell
Fulton County residents have been faithful to Grady Memorial Hospital against tremendous odds — including poverty, indifference and neglect — for many years. Unless Gov. Sonny Perdue and other state leaders act now to release Grady’s fair share of payments from the state of Georgia’s Indigent Care Trust Fund and Disproportionate Share programs, however, the quality of health care services to Fulton County’s indigent sick will be compromised.
One of the most significant factors contributing to operating losses in 2006 and 2007 was state cuts to ICTF/DSH funding. According to a comprehensive audit of Grady’s operations released in March 2007, of the $91 million in ICTF funds for 2006 that Grady had anticipated (the same amount it received in 2005), it received approximately $69 million.
Other resources are also available to the state which are not available to Fulton County or DeKalb County. Members of the Fulton County delegation have indicated state leaders could convene a meeting of the Joint House Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee TODAY and request funds from Georgia’s Tobacco Settlement program or from a $600 million state surplus to fund Grady’s Level 1 Trauma Unit — a state operation with an anticipated $40 million deficit.
In September, the Grady board issued an urgent call for help to its major stakeholders: the state of Georgia, Fulton County, DeKalb County and “private, philanthropic and corporate sources.†Only Fulton County and DeKalb County responded to Grady’s request for “bridge funding to stabilize internal operations.†Fulton County added $15 million to the $82 million we had already appropriated for the Grady Hospital System.
On the other hand, the state of Georgia cut DSH payments for the second consecutive year Nov. 8. With respect to “corporate sources,†some members of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce have expressed a strong interest in the “structure†and governance of the Grady board. Commitments to fund a $200 million capital campaign have not materialized into donors or dollars, however.
Fulton County researchers have recently advised the Board of Commissioners that without significant PUBLIC financing, “safety-net hospitals†like Grady will find it difficult to remain viable in a period when health care costs are rising across the nation — along with increasing numbers of the uninsured seeking health care in the emergency rooms of public hospitals.
Savannah’s Memorial, a 501 (c)(3) safety-net hospital, recently announced a projected $30 million dollar deficit this year. By comparison, Miami-Dade County’s (Florida) Jackson Memorial and Dallas County’s (Texas) Parkland have avoided the financial crises facing Georgia’s hospitals for the poor. Both hospitals, Jackson and Parkland, receive significant local and STATE support. Both hospitals also are governed by boards appointed by county commissioners who are accountable to the taxpayers at the polls — rather than special interests.
Emma Darnell is a Fulton County Commissioner.
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