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Rotary opposes hospital site
By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
© St. Petersburg Times, The East Hernando Rotary Club minces few words. "Your life means nothing!" it proclaims on a billboard along eastbound State Road 50 near Spring Lake Highway. "Don't move our hospital." The club's two other billboards offer similarly blunt appraisals of Hernando HealthCare's proposal to rebuild Brooksville Regional Hospital about 4 miles west of its current location. "We put the billboards up as Rotary to stir the pot, to bring attention, and they have accomplished that," said Dale Garrison, the group's president. "The billboards have generated . . . many, many phone calls from people who are really concerned." As a result, enough questions have emerged -- primarily about the proposed location -- to prompt County Administrator Paul McIntosh to postpone his scheduled Sept. 11 recommendation to commissioners until at least one public hearing can occur. "I don't see any way to meet our desired deadline," said McIntosh, who tentatively has set the hearing for Sept. 13. He told Hernando HealthCare CEO Tom Barb about the delay on Thursday with a fax. McIntosh wrote that the county does not want to quash the deal, but rather to take time to better understand the details surrounding site selection. "I have a number of years' experience in facility planning, siting and construction and know that there are a number of factors involved in the selection of a particular site," he wrote. "I am requesting, once again, that Hernando HealthCare provide me with an analysis regarding this site and any analysis that was conducted on any other potential sites, plus the rationale employed by your corporate experience to select the specific site you have chosen." Since the county will end up owning the building and land, McIntosh explained in an interview, it makes sense to review whether it's a sound investment. Barb acknowledged the commission's responsibility to listen to the public. He doubted that a public hearing could add much value to the ultimate decision, especially if people intend to question the site at State Road 50 and Lykes Dublin Road. "This proposal is based on this location," Barb said. "If all we're going to do is talk about locations, I'm not sure this hearing is going to do any good." Location is the issue driving the discussion. McIntosh said he is developing a list of potential sites that meet Hernando HealthCare's stated criteria, which include 40 acres and access to major roadways. "I know there's a 150-acre site just across U.S. 41 from the fairgrounds. A developer has discussed it with me," McIntosh said. "I'm looking at a couple of other sites along the bypass that would be similar. I think, too, that Oak Hill Hospital has done an analysis. There's plenty of other opportunities." Real estate broker Dave Hill, who specializes in eastern Hernando County, provided information about two sites to the county after Hernando HealthCare rebuffed his overtures. "I know they meet all the criteria that the hospital has set out," Hill said. "They certainly would serve the people of east Hernando County better than the proposed site." Hernando HealthCare's lack of interest in alternatives makes a degree of sense, Hill said, because the company has made a business proposal based on the bottom line. "But they also are in the business of providing a very needed service for the population of the whole county, and in this particular case they are pretty much leaving out a large portion of the population," he said. "The county commissioners need to look at the good of the population." Jaime Wesolowski, CEO at competitor Oak Hill Hospital, predicted that Hernando HealthCare will waver from its hard line if commissioners firmly oppose the selected site. The company doesn't want to cope with the building its leaders have complained about as dated for the remaining 27 years of its lease, he surmised. In private meetings with commissioners, Wesolowski has outlined reasons he believes are strong enough to stop the move to the west. He related his concerns in a separate interview with the Times. A new Brooksville Regional 4 miles closer to Oak Hill would dilute the market share of each by enough to relegate each to small community hospital status, he said. That could hurt the county long-term in its effort to attract expanded health care programs, including open heart surgery. Oak Hill likely would call off its $10-million emergency room expansion, he said, and chances for the success of its fledgling cancer care center would wane. None of the three nearby hospitals could afford to add new programs, he contended, because each would be too small. Meanwhile, he continued, an additional 3,500 residents in the eastern part of the county would be closer to hospitals outside the county than inside. But people in the proposed service region would gain little, he added, because two hospitals already are there. "You could paint me as a competitor, but we're all human beings here," said Wesolowski, who stressed that he agrees Brooksville Regional should be replaced. "Minutes matter when you're trying to get to the emergency department. That, I think, is the most compelling problem we have with that location." It's also the big concern for the East Hernando Rotarians, who have scheduled a public meeting on the issue at 7 p.m. Aug. 29 at Ridge Manor Community Center. "We want to do what's best for our side of the county, which has been ignored," said William La Rosa, a retired surgeon and the group's official spokesman on the issue. "We would have to drive the extra four to five minutes, but people on the other side already have hospitals." If nothing else, Garrison said, the club wants to make sure the public understands why commissioners make their final decision. There needs to be a public conversation about the financial, environmental and health-safety implications of the proposal, he said. "Most of us thought it was a done deal," Garrison said. "Then we found out that wasn't the truth. Now what we're trying to do is get the commissioners to look at all the options."
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