Public voice concerns about medical center

While Nye County Commissioners debated the dissolution of the Pahrump hospital board at their Aug. 14 meeting, hospital board chairwoman Mary McDonnell squelched any discussion about the sale of Pahrump Medical Center and the accompanying 12 acres the board oversees.

Board member Wanda Blohm placed the item on the agenda, but McDonnell said the board's legal counsel, Len Smith, had urged them not to discuss it. Former Pahrump Medical Center tenant Dr. Georges Tannoury filed a temporary restraining order against the hospital board to prevent the lease of PMC to physicians Michael Reiner, Pejman Bady and Carl LeViseur.

Blohm said it wasn't her intent to make a decision on the sale, but said it was very important to discuss it.

"I'm sorry, Wanda. Mr. Smith says don't do it," McDonnell replied.

McDonnell said the hospital board could jeopardize its insurance coverage if it disregarded the attorney's advice.

Under public comment, Curt Gottfred complained about the doctors wanting to include the 12 acres of property in the proposed lease, after the hospital board only requested proposals on the PMC building itself. "If you add the property, everybody in the world is going to respond," he said.

Resident Leo Rousch said, "I think the property should be put up for sale. Sell it and take it off our tax bills."

Realtor Paula Glidden said the property would be worth more than the $1.7 million the doctors proposed in a lease-purchase agreement. She said there aren't large blocks of property left like the 12 acres, which is also in a central location.

Hospital board member Patti Chipman wanted to discuss a letter from former PMC operator, Rural Health Management Corp., asking the board to pay the remainder of the money owed on the early severance of its four-year contract in April 2001.

McDonnell said it wasn't on the agenda. In a letter April 15, RHMC said the hospital board owed $36,425. The company has now been awarded a certificate of need to build a 25-bed hospital on Wilson Road.

Rural Health Management stated, "Immediate availability of these funds will assist us moving the project forward in an expedited manner." The funds could be used for soil testing and geophysical analysis necessary to break ground on the hospital building, RHMC said.

RHMC Planning and Development Officer Roy Barraclough said the letter doesn't mean the hospital project would be delayed until the hospital board pays up. The company plans to break ground in December, he said, depending how soon RHMC is pre-qualified for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funds.

"We've been patient. They've owed us these monies for over a year. We're trying to make it a win-win situation," Barraclough said. "If they were to honor it now, instead of five years from now, they'd get the double benefit of responding to a legitimate liability, where the monies that are received are going to go right back in the community. That's the point I've been trying to make with the board all along."

"I can tell you unequivocally the (hospital) project is moving forward without these monies. Any donations or any funds we received from any source is going to make the project that much more viable," he said.


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