Negotiations have resumed between the Palm Drive hospital board and the nonprofit hospital foundation that hopes to reopen the shuttered facility as a scaled-down acute care hospital.
Hospital board president Chris Dawson said Wednesday that he was skeptical the Palm Drive campus, which closed April 28, could be resurrected as a traditional hospital, complete with a costly medical surgical unit and intensive care unit.
However, Dawson said he and other board members are open to exploring the Palm Drive Health Care Foundation's proposal if the nonprofit can show that it's financially viable.
"Nobody on the board wants to approve a plan that financially is on wobbly legs," Dawson said, adding that the board does not want to be faced with the possibility of having to close the hospital again next year.
Gail Thomas, a foundation board member and a key negotiator for the group, insists that a small acute hospital can succeed in Sebastopol.
She said the foundation's plan would dramatically reduce the size of the money-losing ICU and medical surgical units, while at the same time offer money-making outpatient "centers of excellence" that could focus on such things as non-invasive surgery, spine surgery, neurology and orthopedics services.
Thomas said many of these services would focus on the west county's aging population, as well as other communities along the Highway 101 corridor.
"We believe the model we are developing is fully sustainable and can continue and thrive in our community," Thomas said.
The hospital board has scheduled a special meeting tonight to discuss, among other things, an update on proposals for future use of the facilities. The meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. in the Sebastopol Center for the Art's Little Red Hen Dining Room.
The board will meet in closed session to review issues related to its bankruptcy filing.
The board will also discuss the need to find a new executive to replace hospital CEO Thomas Harlan, who has offered his resignation and hopes to leave by mid-June.
In early April, the hospital board filed Chapter 9 bankruptcy and approved the closure of the cash-strapped facility. It cited crippling competition from Santa Rosa hospitals, especially Kaiser Permanente, declining overnight patient stays and reduced health plan payments.
Dawson said that aside from the foundation's proposal to reopen the hospital, the board has had preliminary discussions with both St. Joseph Health of Sonoma County, which runs both Santa Rosa Memorial and Petaluma Valley hospitals, and officials at Healdsburg District Hospital.
St. Joseph has expressed interest in supporting physical therapy services and possibly urgent care services similar to those it provides in Windsor, Rohnert Park and southeast Santa Rosa, according to Todd Salnas, president of St. Joseph.
But Salnas, in an interview last week, made it clear St. Joseph was not interested re-opening Palm Drive as an acute care hospital.
Dawson said discussions with Healdsburg District officials are even more preliminary, and have not identified any specific medical services or programs.
The resumption of talks between the hospital foundation and board comes after a recent breakdown in negotiations between the two parties. Last week, the foundation asked a federal bankruptcy judge to appoint a mediator to kick-start negotiations.
Thomas said the judge denied the request because he did not have the authority to order mediation and the foundation had no standing in bankruptcy court because it was not one of the hospital district's creditors.
UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: