PRINCETON — There was applause in the meeting room and at least one doctor bounding through the halls at Princeton Community Hospital Tuesday night, as word arrived that a plan to merge PCH with Bluefield Regional Medical Center and two other hospitals failed without a motion to proceed.

After more than six weeks of speculation that the PCH Board of Directors was mulling a plan to combine Mercer County’s two hospitals under the supervision of West Virginia United and LifePoint hospitals, PCH’s governing panel finally confirmed that representatives of all four health care bodies had drafted a memorandum of understanding that would begin exploring the merger.

PCH Board President Fred St. John emphasized a motion to accept that MOU would signal “nothing more than the start of a process, not the end of a process.”

Meanwhile, citizens concerned that profits might soon mean more than people at PCH and physicians frustrated that quality of care could be compromised under the leadership of a for-profit operation hoped St. John was wrong. For more than an hour, they took turns calling for the conclusion of negotiations with LifePoint and for open communication from a board reportedly sworn to confidentiality.

“You guys are messing with a lot of people’s lives, and I don’t think you’re giving it the serious thought it deserves,” Lee Ross told the solemn board who listened to community input for more than an hour but still remained silent on their actual plans.

“The employees of the hospital deserve a lot better than they’re getting from you. The community deserves better,” Ross said, just before the board began a two-hour executive session to “hash out” the memo that many feared would begin a hospital sale.

Approximately 190-200 people turned out for the meeting that would decide PCH’s destiny. There were so many among the audience that PCH officials informed about 40 that they would have to wait outside the meeting for news, in order to accommodate the West Virginia Fire Marshal’s occupancy rules. Some left during the executive session, but there were about 140 still on hand when the members emerged from the closed-door session.

When the PCH leaders returned, St. John opened the floor for a motion to accept the MOU, but silence was the only sound inside a full classroom-turned-meeting-room.

An audience member interrupted to ask what the MOU entailed, but St. John declined to answer.

“We’ll work out the details with our public relations people and the media,” he said, opening the floor again for a motion.

Again, there was none forthcoming.

St. John then called for a motion declining the MOU, only to hear from PCH legal counsel Robert “Bob” Holroyd.

“If there is no motion to accept, then it fails for lack of a motion,” Holroyd clarified, setting off the cheers of an anxious audience.

Many among the crowd immediately told the board members, “Thank you,” before they filed out of the meeting.

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“Selling Princeton Community Hospital to LifePoint is just plain wrong,” Princeton businesswoman Elizabeth Osborne told the board, calling on them to think long and hard before making the shift from a community non-profit facility to one based on a bottom line. “If you really think you have to sell PCH, at least choose a reputable company.”

Osborne also reminded the panelists that PCH is the second-largest employer in Mercer County, behind only the Board of Education. She predicted that if PCH turned for-profit, businesses across the board would suffer and that Princeton would become a ghost town.

“If selling PCH truly is in the works … let the people vote,” she said.

Retired educator Tom Farmer pointed to the old adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

“I don’t think this hospital is broke,” he said, telling the board he had watched for decades as PCH grew and services expanded.

He also chastised the board for steadfastly refusing to release any information on a potential sale plan.

“I’ve never seen anything work that’s done in secrecy, except birthday and anniversary parties,” he said. “My gut feeling is that this secrecy is bad, really bad.”

Princeton attorney Charlie Pace, who serves as the president of the PCH Foundation Board, also addressed the board, asking for information and telling its members he had “no preconceived notions” on a potential sale. Specifically, he asked what problems existed at PCH that would require a sale but could not be repaired under local authority.

“I’d like to know why we have no other choice,” he said.

He referred to a full-page ad published in the Princeton Times and Daily Telegraph, in which St. John and PCH CEO Wayne Griffith invited citizens to the meeting to clear misconceptions. Pace said he hadn’t heard anything that clarified any concerns.

“I hope at some point in time you can tell us what the heck is going on,” he said. “…At this point, we’re not informed.”

Citizen after citizen issued a similar plea.

“Don’t sell us down the river,” as Ross phrased it.

He also called board members out one by one, asking if they could live with PCH profits benefiting LifePoint’s high-paid executives in Brentwood, Tenn., while Mercer County neighbors unable to pay suffered without health care.

“Can you live with that?” he asked

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Dr. Sherri Ross once walked to PCH to volunteer inside the community hospital her family believes belongs partially to them. Before medical school, she was a paramedic inside the emergency department.

Now, she’s an anesthesiologist at the same hospital where she and her colleagues boast from one year of experience to 41 years. The average length of service at PCH is 15 years.

“That kind of longevity and stability is a testament to the hospital,” Ross said. “That bottom line does not dictate what we do.”

Ross and other doctors who spoke were no more in favor than citizens of becoming a part of LifePoint Hospitals - the for-profit conglomerate they clearly believed would control operations if the MOU were approved.

Dr. Rowena Chambers touted the success of PCH’s cancer program, accredited and commended by the American College of Surgeons. The treatment progress, which outpaces other West Virginia and national averages, was built on a realistic vision, reasonable prices, making the most of local resources and “doing the work ourselves,” she said.

“We have accomplished a lot by our own efforts. We did what we knew was right. Nobody will care for us better than we care for ourselves,” Chambers said, cautioning the board about handing over local control of the hospital to any for-profit organization. “They will probably look more at our bottom line than what we accomplish. That’s not good for us or our community.”

Touting the progress of MR-guided breast biopsies, magnetic resonance planning for knee replacements, radio frequency ablation of tumors and more, Dr. Dana Olson said, “We are with the program. We are on top of the program.”

Through all the medical treatment, Olson said PCH doctors strive to keep the faith of people who faithfully gave their money to build PCH and expect cutting-edge care in their hospital.

“I believe we can solve our problems and not give our hospital away,” he said.

Dr. Todd Smith urged board members to remember a hospital corporation would not reinvest money made in Princeton in PCH.

“They are not giving us money because they love us,” he said. “It will come right back out, and it will leave this area.”

Dr. Gene Duremdes closed the program for the docs, taking a more logical approach to the situation. He outlined the reasons PCH might be interested in partnering with LifePoint. He concluded the only viable reasons would occur if the local hospital were financially insolvent and struggling to survive. Physicians don’t believe either of those is the case.

According to West Virginia Health Care Authority statistics, Duremdes reported PCH ranks fifth in profit margin per patient for state hospitals and the best among non-profit facilities.

“We’re performing better than most, if not all, non-profit hospitals,” he said.

Duremdes also pointed to a handful of other LifePoint acquisitions: Danville Regional Medical Center, Putnam General Hospital and Coastal Carolina Medical Center, all of which have reported a level of concern as a result of the purchase or merger.

Accipiter Capital Management, which represents a large number of LifePoint stockholders, has also expressed concerns over LifePoint’s acquisition practices, management compensation and capital expenditures. In a letter to LifePoint management, Accipiter advised the organization to slow or stop future acquisitions in favor of running the hospitals it already had better. That was before LifePoint started shopping for PCH.

Duremdes warned board members not to be swayed by pledges to leave a local advisory board in place to assist in governing the hospital.

“They are purely that — advisory,” he said, closing by telling board members that rejecting the LifePoint-WVUH offer “makes moral and ethical local economic sense.”

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St. John said the board he leads has a responsibility to “flesh out the details” of many issues facing the hospital.

“Unfortunately, this won’t be the last time we’ll have to deal with situations,” he said, later referring to alternatives to the current hospital operation.

Asked again about the details of the MOU, St. John deferred requests for further information to PCH Marketing Director Debra Bush, who also declined to comment Tuesday night. When the Times attempted to reach her Wednesday, she was involved in a meeting at the hospital and was unavailable.

— Contact Tammie Toler at ttoler@ptonline.net.