Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
WLOSers stayed on the story about problems about Haywood Regional Medical Center, but the story has changed and they have yet to really explain what the heck is going on there. The Mountaineer, the local Waynesville, has had the best coverage.
Haywood Regional Medical Center had its Medicare funding cut off because of problems with nursing and pharmaceutical services, WLOSers reported. The Mountaineer reported that after a second inspection over the weekend, the government pulled Medicaid funding as well. Those two sources make up the majority of the county-owned hospital’s funding.
WLOSer Carolyan Ryan said she got hold of a letter from a former HRMC nurse who said that nursing mistakes in administering drugs led to the a couple of deaths of patients. That directly contradicts what WLOSers quoted a hospital official as saying Sunday. WLOSer Kassandra Pride had a quote Sunday from a hospital official saying there were “no negative patient outcomes” from the issues the hospital was dealing with. Carolyn talked to an attorney for a patient who said the evidence will show that yes, nursing mistakes led to a patient death.
WLOSers also reported Monday night that HRMC hospital CEO David Rice offered his resignation. Hospital board members said it was the first step in restoring trust in the hospital. Rice suggested the hospital hire an outside company to help them come into compliance within 30 days, WLOSers said. It’s clear that the hospital board is scrambling to figure out how to stay afloat.
WLOSers said the hospital wants local residents to know that they will get care if they need it, no matter where their coverage comes from. They’ve got deals with other hospitals to transport patients and such.
This is a huge story. But I want to know how things got to this point. How? There have been a couple of stories in the past about a few doctors getting fired or quitting or something, but that was it. The first mention of HRMC’s troubles with Medicare funding appeared on the Asheville media scene Saturday. Hopefully somebody will explain how things at the hospital got to this point, and where it’s all going.
In other news…
A bomb threat shut down the McDowell County Courthouse. A dude called up and said there was bomb in the courthouse and he was on the roof with a gun. Police shut everything down but didn’t find anything… A new shooting range is planned for Henderson County, but some residents in the Edneyville community say they don’t want it because of the noise pollution… It might snow some Tuesday night… Park rangers want a ban on loaded guns in nationals parks… And WLOSer John Le interviewed Maria Mason, a Weaverville resident, who plays the wife of Burt Reynolds in a new movie about a poker-playing gambler called Deal. Movie sounds horrible. Burt Reynolds is, like, soooo 30 years ago.
That’s a crazy story.
But since I had monday off, i actually caught the six o’clock for a change, and they literally went down the entire document siting the failed inspections, page by page, and explained it really well.
It may have been the best reporting I’ve seen on there (which isn’t really saying too much), so I’m not sure what your talking about with the lack of coverage.
They explained every reason for each of the last three inspections failing, what the penalties were, and they went into detail about the loss of medicaid funding…
…so what exactly did you feel they left out?