Mayor's General Hospital Plan Shocks Staff, Metro Council

NASHVILLE, TN — Metro Mayor Megan Barry's plan to roll back services at Nashville General Hospital was a surprise to the employees and to the council members who lead the committee that oversees social services in the city.

Thursday, Barry said that Metro will provide funding to the hospital through the end of the fiscal year and then will end inpatient care at the city's only indigent care hospital. The mayor's office said that of the 120 beds at the hospital, an average of just 40 are filled daily and that an outpatient-only model will better serve the hospital's patients. She said the city will create an indigent-care fund to help the poor receive medical care even after the hospital scales back its ambit.

"We had no idea," DeCosta Hastings, co-chair of the Health, Hospitals and Social Services Committee, told News 4. "We didn’t get any notice about this, we didn’t even know that it was a talk. I did get wind last Tuesday that a group of pastors showed up here to the board meeting and asked the board not to shut down their hospital. I went to ask about that, but no one responded.”

The committee's chairman, Erica Gilmore, said she too was out of the loop.

"There was not any prior conversation about this new development. As the chair of Health and Hospitals, I am very disappointed and taken aback. There was much conversation from the mayor’s liaisons about the MLS soccer stadium, but none about the hospital," she told WSMV.

Indeed, the timing of Barry's announcement — two days after the council approved $225 million in bonds to build a stadium at the fairgrounds if Nashville is awarded a Major League Soccer expansion team in a deal that also gives 10 acres of free city-owned land to the team's billionaire owners — certainly rubbed Hastings the wrong way, who told NewsChannel 5 that healthcare needs to be a priority for the city.

"Our we going to have to shake some things around? Yeah, maybe. We're going to do some things differently? Yeah, possibly. But what do we have to do right now? We have to stop and make sure things are taken care of for all of our constituents and the people that live in this city," he told WTVF.

The communications director of the Service Employees International Union local which represents many hospital employees said the news similarly came as a shock.

"All day, our phone is ringing off the hook with employees that work here and community leaders, just people crying, nervous, panicked – worried that they’re going to lose jobs," Mark Naccarato told WSMV. "How are they going to feed their families? How are they going to take care of their patients?"

Though Hastings said he didn't know of any council members who knew of the mayor's plan, Barry's spokesperson Sean Braisted, in a statement, indicated that some were in the loop.

Mayor Barry's announcement on Thursday was made due to the inevitable questions about the future of Nashville General Hospital following the recent agreement reached by HCA and Meharry for Southern Hills to serve as the index hospital for the medical college. Dr. Webb, members of the Hospital Authority, and some members of the Metro Council were notified prior to the announcement. Stakeholders will be engaged over the course of the next few months before the end of the fiscal year to work on the details on how best to move towards a new, better model for safety net care in Nashville.

Image via Metro Government