Quincy hospital looking at plans for future

QUINCY — A community committee is meeting this spring to come up with a plan for services that might be offered by Quincy Valley Medical Center – and maybe even a plan for an entirely new hospital.

The hospital has been struggling to meet its expenses and pay off outstanding debt, a situation that drew the attention of the Washington Auditor’s Office in the hospital’s annual audit. Hospital district commissioners asked Grant County Commissioners for a temporary increase in the district’s allowed interest-bearing warrant balance earlier this month.

As a junior taxing district, hospital officials are allowed to borrow money from the county when the district doesn’t have enough cash on hand to meet its obligations. The money must be paid back with interest. The district owed about $3.9 million to the county at the end of January, said Grant County Treasurer Darryl Pheasant.

County commissioners granted a temporary increase to $4.5 million, Pheasant said. The district has been struggling for a while, with expenses outstripping revenues since at least 2010, according to the report issued by the auditor’s office.

District voters rejected a $1 million, one-year levy proposal in November; the money would have been used to pay back some of the district’s debt. Following the vote, a group of QVMC district residents and Quincy community leaders, concerned about the hospital’s future, started meeting to look for possible solutions to the hospital’s dilemma, said QVMC administrator Jerry Hawley.

The group included Quincy city officials and the Port of Quincy, the ambulance service, Columbia Basin Hospital and Samaritan Healthcare, and the state association for rural hospital districts, among others, Hawley said.

“We ended up with about 20 people here” at the early meetings, Hawley said. Out of those meetings came a smaller committee, which is looking at options for services and operation.

One of the proposals under discussion would involve building a new but smaller hospital, Hawley said. The old one is in poor repair and preliminary estimates are that building new would be cheaper than remodeling, he said. A community survey in spring 2016 showed that district residents, at least those who answered the survey, were most concerned about maintaining the emergency room. There are other services that would be both popular and profitable in Quincy, including employment-related examinations and screening, he said.

The committee is still meeting to consider options, Hawley said, with the goal of presenting ideas to district patrons later in the spring.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.