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Report Recommends Privatization of State-Owned Hospitals

CHARLESTON — A new report said the state needs to consider a commission to look at partially or fully privatizing West Virginia’s seven state-run hospitals.

The Public Policy Foundation of West Virginia released a report Monday calling for the creation of a Hospital Facilities Authority to look at each of the state-owned hospitals, which include long-term care, psychiatric hospitals, and nursing homes.

According to the report, authored by Terry Wallace, the hospitals suffer from chronic underfunding and high turnover in staff. These issues cause the hospitals to be underutilized, with more money being wasted on keeping the facilities open and maintaining the infrastructure.

The hospitals include Hopemont Hospital in Preston County; John Manchin Sr. Health Care Center in Fairmont; Mildred Mitchell-Bateman Hospital in Cabell County; William R. Sharpe, Jr. Hospital in Lewis County; Welch Community Hospital in McDowell County; Jackie Withrow Hospital in Raleigh County; and Lakin Hospital in Mason County.

“West Virginia is decades behind almost all other states in transitioning their acute and long-term care facilities to structures with greater flexibility that will allow them to attract and retain nurses and other health care providers,” Wallace said.

The facilities are managed by the Office of Health Facilities at the state Department of Health and Human Resources, but the office is hamstrung by personnel and purchasing rules managed by the Department of Administration. Because of those rules, the office is unable to offer better pay to recruit nurses and staff.

The staffing shortage has affected how many patients these facilities can take in. At Hopemont Hospital in Terra Alta, only 48 of its 98 beds are being used, while the facility has a 50-person wait list.

The report takes no issues with the services offered by these hospitals and the need for these services. But it does place blame on the state for a top-down bureaucratic way of managing the facilities that causes the hospitals to not fully meet their potential.

State Sen. Greg Boso, R-Nicholas, said the Government Organization Committee will take a look at the report during the 2019 legislative session that starts Wednesday. One of the issues Boso wants to look at is whether the state should be in the business of running hospitals.

The solution, according to Wallace, is creating a Hospital Facilities Authority and transferring all hospital operations to this new entity. The authority would be governed by a nine-member board of managers appointed in three-year staggered term by the governor, with the DHHR secretary as a non-voting member. The board would study the possibility of privatizing the hospitals or privatizing specific services.

“The mission of the HFA would be to align each hospital with a privatization model that would best suit their own unique circumstances,” Wallace said.

The authority would present plans for each hospital, solicit proposals from private sector or non-profit health care companies, and would be authorized to undertake any sale or lease. The authority would also make sure no interruption of services occurs and that current level of care is maintained.

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