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Hospital loan finalized
Published Friday, July 11, 2008
NATCHEZ — Early Thursday morning, while much of the city was still asleep, the finishing touches were being put on a $3 million loan for Natchez Regional Medical Center.
Hospital CEO Scott Phillips said the loan was a milestone for the hospital and would provide much-needed breathing room.
On Thursday afternoon hospital attorney Walter Brown said no one showed up to contest the hospital’s loan at a mandatory validation meeting.
“It went smoothly,” he said.
Brown said the hospital was scheduled to receive the money on Thursday, or today, at the latest.
“We’ve cleared the legal hurdles,” he said of the loan.
Of the $3 million loan, $1 million will be used to pay hospital debt while the other $2 million will fund the hospital’s restructuring effort.
And on Thursday morning a critical part of the hospital’s restructuring started.
Members of the Horne Group met with Phillips before beginning their in house evaluation of the NRMC.
On June 24 Horne was hired as a consultant to conduct a study of the hospital.
The results of that study are expected to reveal a need to sell or lease the hospital.
While Thursday was the first day Horne representatives were on campus, Phillips said their study actually started days before.
Phillips said consultants with the firm have been conducting an extensive study on all matters of data dealing with the hospital.
“It was due diligence on the data,” he said.
To begin a physical study of the campus, Horne’s consultant Barry Plunkett and CPA David Williams were at NRMC on Thursday morning.
On Thursday afternoon Plunkett said after meeting with Phillips the trio took a lengthy tour of the hospital’s facility and began the process of interviewing hospital employees.
Phillips likened the employee interviews to “taking the hospital’s pulse.”
While the hospital study is not scheduled to be finished until the end of July Plunkett said things were going smoothly.
Plunkett said he was “encouraged” with the level of pride employees have in their place of employment.
And Plunkett’s news was not the only positive news coming from the hospital.
Phillips said the hospital is in a position to become cash neutral by the end of July.
“Basically the cash coming in equals the cash going out,” he said. “It’s another milestone for us.”
Aside from the soon to be cash neutral status of the facility Phillips said the hospital is still moving on schedule to possibly be sold or leased by September.
With the positive momentum the hospital is experiencing Phillips said he has great confidence in the hospital’s future.
“This hospital is going to thrive,” he said.
Comments
Posted by buttercup26 (anonymous) on July 11, 2008 at 12:36 a.m. (Suggest removal)
shh... wasn't they just fixin to close it's doors a couple months ago? i hope the hospital does 'thrive'!!!!
but i'm sure in a few months some one will be asked to offer up some fine cheese for that fine whine that the 'board members' will be serving up once again..
;)
Posted by fire39212 (anonymous) on July 11, 2008 at 2:10 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Amen buttercup...
Posted by destiny (anonymous) on July 11, 2008 at 9:19 a.m. (Suggest removal)
and the beat goes on, and the merry-go-round goes on and th.......
Posted by needmoreinfo (anonymous) on July 11, 2008 at 10:23 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Maybe I missed this in previous articles but ---who is making the loan to NRMC and at what rate of interest and for how long?
Posted by mcmy (anonymous) on July 11, 2008 at 11:01 a.m. (Suggest removal)
2 millon for restructuring??
Posted by hoober (anonymous) on July 11, 2008 at 11:55 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I wonder if part of this money will go to help our citizens with brain dieases?
Posted by NatchezEnema (anonymous) on July 11, 2008 at 12:42 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Another 3 million debt for the tax payer and they still don't know if they are going to sell it or lease it. I think that decision should have been made first before a loan was taken out. I still smell a rat at this place. GO FIGURE!
Posted by texasranger (anonymous) on July 12, 2008 at 12:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Why would you hire a coroner to go to a homicide where a body was decomposed after 2 weeks , then hire a committee and pay them and the coroner 3 million dollars to tell you the deceased was dead??? Why would anyone need to hire a commmittee or peoples or anybody to inquire into a hospital that knew what condition they were already in??? Does anyone believe that the business office that handled the money and bills didn,t tell someone they were in debt?? or had too many outstanding debts that they couldn,t or wouldn,t collect. When i owed them $15.00 they dunned me regular until i paid it, which i did. It was for 3 Tylenol. A tylenol tablet at that time was $5.00 american dollars,but i understand that because we pay that for the no-pays,moochers,rich people who don,t pay,all who don,t pay up to and including staff. Why wouldn,t anyone in their right mind spend 3 MILLION dollars to hire someone to tell them they were already DEAD? It,s so they can be paid fees,lawyers,politicians,board members, and don,t act like you don,t know and everyone else doesn,t know. The only difference between most of these people and Jesse James is he was honest about being an outlaw and he carried his piston on his hip in the open where everybody could see it.
Posted by fire39212 (anonymous) on July 13, 2008 at 10:07 a.m. (Suggest removal)
You said it all there texasranger....
Posted by texasranger (anonymous) on July 13, 2008 at noon (Suggest removal)
What the ____is restructing anywoo?? It,s a slick word for lets be a Tennesse mountain tick,they just suck blood,never give anything in return and you can,t get them off you unless you burnum out.
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