Commissioners debate hospital management

During the Oct. 21 meeting of the Marshall County Commissioners meeting, it was another body’s bylaws that dominated discussion: those of the hospital Board of Control.

All three Marshall County Commissioners were in attendance. They are Don ‘Salty’ Melton of District 1, Chris Duroy of District 2 and Josh Cantrell of District 3.

The commissioners approved the minutes of the October 7 meeting by a unanimous decision.

Then, the commissioners discussed a proposed correction of the Board of Control Bylaws of the Marshall County Medical Center.

Mary Ann Hale, executive administrator to the commissioners, presenteda report to the commissioner’s about corrections to the bylaws.

In a previous meeting, the commissioners sought legal counsel from attorney Dustin Rowe after it was discussed that items in the Board of Control’s Bylaws had been changed with the permission of the Marshall County Board of Commissioners. The Board of Commissioners appoints members to the board of Control.

“After our discussion with Dustin Rowe, it was his suggestion to try to get the [correct names] listed for the Marshall County Medical Center and Alliance Health Madill,” she said.

The commissioners approved changing the name of the hospital’s management company from Integris on the 2015 bylaws to Alliance Health on the 2018 bylaws, Hale said.

“That should have only been a reference to the management company, but whomever corrected the 2018 bylaws also made changes in several places,” she said.

Duroy recounted a meeting where Alliance Health asked the Board of Commissioners to remove Integris’ name from the bylaws and put Alliance in its place.

“We okayed the name change on that part,” Duroy said. “We okayed that ‘cause we thought we were just cleaning up their paperwork.”

Hale further detailed the proposed corrections.

“If you go through the corrected ones, I put them back to 2015 except for the name change,” she said. “The front page should have just been the title page. After approval by the Board of Commissioners [it was] sent to the Board of Control who approved it but there was a signing page for the Commissioners, so I added that to the back. I also did put in here that per state statutes the Board of Control is governed by the Board of Commissioners and changes to their Bylaws should be made by the Board of Commissioners.”

Duroy said Becky Brinlee, an exective assistant at Alliance Health Madill, does all of the Board of Control’s paperwork rather than them having a secretary or treasurer.

“I’m not even sure who’s on the sign-in sheet with the bank accounts,” he said, “and that’s what scares me. And talking with the lawyers, we are liable for everything they do.”

The Board of Control currently consists of Sam Huffman (chairman), Keith Long (vice chair), Walter Bruce Bigger, (secretary/treasurer) and members Ramona Clark Judd and Eloisa Sanchez.

They have also retained Tom Briggs as board account.

During the discussion, Duroy shared about a visit to a recent Board of Control meeting.

“I went to their meeting the other day and they were actually looking at doing a $10.5 million rebuild on the hospital,” he said. “They were fixing to indebt the county. They said they are doing Phase 1 and Phase 2 but didn’t get to Phase 3 cause they can’t afford Phase 3 yet. My thought is you spent $350,000 on our architect to tell you; you can’t afford this. That’s a little pricey. I’d have done it for $20.”

Cantrell made the motion to accept the revised bylaws and Duroy seconded the motion.

Prior to the vote, Melton asked for clarification about the changes.

“The only changes on this is just basically the names,” he asked.

Hale responded yes and explained in-depth.

“From 2015 to 2018 on that copy I gave you, everywhere it said hospital or Marshall County Medical Center should have stayed the same. But whoever rewrote these or revised them, everywhere [the bylaws] said hospital, Marshall County Medical Center or Marshall County HMA was changed to Alliance Health Madill. Alliance Health Madill.