Restoring our hospital's financial health

By Randy Horton

The current monthly financial statements should be swallowed with a strong dose of healthy skepticism. Continuous long-term planning is needed to address obsolete facilities.

Fast forward to 2010. Tri-City Healthcare District announced that it lost more than 18 million dollars for the year ended June 30. The size of this loss is the largest in recent memory. The hospital never lost so much money during the last decade.

But now the hospital says that it has turned the financial corner and it was profitable in July and August. But news of an abrupt restoration of financial health should be swallowed only with a strong dose of healthy skepticism. If elected, I pledge to take a long, hard look at the hospital's financial statements to find out if they are in fact reliable or if they really are fictitious.

The hospital district continually fails to plan, which is no different than planning to fail. The current hospital management took great pride in obtaining an extension until 2030 to address old buildings susceptible to earthquake damage. Regardless of the extension, the hospital's oldest buildings suffer from technological obsolescence. Two of the hospital's primary competitors, Palomar and Scripps, are completing state-of-the-art facilities. Tri-City has refused physician overtures to investigate alternative forms of governance that might help Tri-City overcome this competitive disadvantage. Instead, Tri-City is betting its long-term financial health on a long-shot: that a miraculous change in the attitude of voters towards the hospital will occur, so that a new bond will pass a decade from now. If elected, I will advocate continuous long-term planning to address the long-term financial viability of our community hospital.

Although the hospital's financial survival is at issue, there is no difference of opinion regarding the high quality of care provided by its physicians, nurses and hospital staff.