A little over two and a half years ago I read a small article in the paper about an upcoming election for our hospital district with two seats up for reelection. Come to find out the election wasn’t going to take place until November. The article stated that the hospital district only owns the original 26 acres and Kingman Hospital Inc. owned 38 properties. I wasn’t happy with the direction the hospital was going so I started attending their meetings. In the year-and-a-half that I have served on the board, I have learned a lot and it’s not at all like I thought it was going to be when we formed this district 38 years ago.
Your hospital district is broke: we have no money, no investments, no foundation, and because we won’t raise the rent, every time we need additional funds to meet out budget it is recorded as prepaid rent. So now we are accruing debt. Once again, we just passed a budget for the same amount that we have been receiving since 2012 – $1.2 million. Our budget is for over $2 million, but they won’t raise it.
Our buildings have not been kept in good repair. They are not being maintained on a regular basis, and we have too many departments that need to be enlarged and upgraded. I have visited most departments, but not the hospital rooms out of respect for patients. I asked the board if we couldn’t all take a tour of our facilities. They didn’t think this was necessary.
We are working with a 30-year lease and we have only added three amendments in all that time. According to the lease, KHI is to provide us with a Certification of Insurance making sure they are adequately covered. They also need to give us a copy of their audit report and a quarterly financial report. I’ve had to ask for all of these. They can’t give us a quarterly report because their system isn’t set up to do this. I’ve asked for the Accreditation Report that is done every three years. They won’t provide me with that report.
At the March meeting, I asked if we couldn’t put a couple of articles in the paper about three seats being up for election in November to let our constituents know in case anyone wanted to run. As you can see, nothing was put in the papers or on the radio. In the March Board packet was information from the election department. They sent a list of all the Special Districts in the county. They couldn’t even get our name right. Also included was a nomination packet for the incumbents. I don’t think this is fair or ethical to anyone else in the Hospital District that might want to run, especially since they don’t want their constituents to know there are seats available. In my observation, this is a hand-picked board and if your agenda isn’t the same as theirs or KHI they don’t want you on the Board. This is why our non-profit KHI Board went from a membership of the community to a closed board because a consultant told them this wasn’t good business because people may get on the Board and want to take it in a different direction. I think this is exactly why they were setup to have community-based membership so the community would always have input on the direction their hospital was going. I have only heard of one person getting nomination signatures because one of the incumbents isn’t running. If only three run there won’t be an election. If they haven’t been asked to run by someone on either Board, I’m wondering what the other Board members will think since the person hasn’t attended one Hospital District Board meeting and I know how they feel about that.
My concern is not with the care I’ll receive at our hospital, it’s with the lack of physicians and KHI’s ability to retain them and the money that has been taken out of our hospital for KHI’s benefit.
Thirty-eight years ago, this community wanted to keep this hospital in local control. They didn’t want an outside provider buying this hospital and becoming a feeder hospital to Phoenix. There is one thing that the organizing committee knew: that this hospital had to be self-supporting. The money had to stay at the hospital and the Hospital District was given that authority to buy land and equipment. The non-profit was formed by the same people that formed the District. The District couldn’t manage the hospital because there were bonds on the hospital. They had to lease the hospital to a corporation not for pecuniary (money) profit, they had to be duly organized under the laws of this state for the purpose of conducting a hospital. You can find this under Arizona Revised Statue Sec 48-1911. Also, under this same section, they had to provide a rental upon terms and in an amount which will provide a fair return to the district on its investments be sufficient to meet the payments of principal and interest of bonds issued under this article, and provide amounts necessary to meet the expenses of the district.
We are no better off today than we were 38 years ago. Your hospital district has no money, we’ve become a feeder hospital for Las Vegas, we’ve not added any property for further expansion, and our 26 acres is in need of major financial infusion. Your District Board has not taken any responsibility for the care and keeping of our property or the financial means to keep it in good repair. KHI isn’t accountable to the board. Transparency on both Boards is not there and our financial situation is dire. I wish I could tell you that I have made a difference serving on this board, but I haven’t. These are not nameless, faceless people that sucked the money out of our hospital. We’ve supported their businesses, elected them to offices and reelected them, we share pews, bleachers and auditorium seats, and we have worked side by side with them through are civic and non-profit organizations–all for the benefit of our community.
KHI owns 41 properties. They have committed $23 million to an interchange and they are now asking for zoning changes for their property next to Kingman Crossing. They are worth over $256 million. Whose property do you think they are going to take care of first?
Penny White
Board Member of Hospital District #1 of Mohave County
