MINERAL COUNTY – In a series of meetings held across the county, residents were given the opportunity to voice any concerns about Mineral Community Hospital and Mineral Regional Health Center to the interim chief executive officers.

The townhall-style meetings were held on Tuesday, November 19, and Wednesday, November 20. The Tuesday meetings were held in Alberton’s senior center and Superior’s ambulance arena, while those on Wednesday were at the Tricon Timber conference room in St. Regis and O-Aces in DeBorgia.

The meetings were very informal and participants made jokes along with the serious business. Some of the issues addressed were concerns of the direction of the hospital and health center as well as how the facilities will continue to change over the course of the interim CEO’s tenures.

During Wednesday’s meeting in St. Regis, Cindy Stergar, interim CEO of MRHC, said the main focus for herself and Larry Putnam, interim CEO of MCH, was to untangle the two businesses into distinct entities. She said MCH and MRHC were like two boxes so entangled with vines it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.

“We’ve been trying to untangle the vines so we can really get a state of the state rendition of our organizations,” said Stergar.

According to Stergar, she and Putnam want to determine the healthcare needs of Mineral County to improve the system. The eventual goal is to have operations in place where a full-time CEO could come in and everyone would know how everything worked.

Both Putnam and Stergar admitted to how MCH and MRHC have some financial problems. The problems stem from high payroll, high payables and cash flow issues. According to the CEOs, the main problem is one of patients. Many people go to Missoula for any doctor’s visits and the local establishments suffer for it.

“We’ve got great staff and primary care programs, but we’re a little short on patients,” said Putnam.

When he had been asked how the communities could help, Putnam said his response was “use our facilities.” He said even one person going to MCH for an operation or to get something diagnosed would make a huge difference to the hospital’s bottom line. The hospital and health center are both equipped with services for primary care and could manage most types of health care needs. There could be some roadblocks for patients to go to MCH and MRHC.

Stacy Neil, safety coordinator at Tricon Timber, related a case where she had a bad health care experience and said such situations could cause problems for the community’s trust of the institution. It was agreed how one bad experience could spread around a small community and lead to people no longer trusting the organization. The CEOs acknowledged the issue and have asked for members of the community with such stories to contact them so the issues can be fixed and there will not be repeat incidents.

One of the causes of these problems was attributed to a lack of coordination. If a patient sees a different doctor every visit, the person’s main physician may not have all the information on the patient’s problem. To prevent this, the CEOs will work to ensure different doctors who treat a patient make sure to update the person’s primary doctor about what was found or tried.

The future of the hospital and health center was also discussed. It was stressed there are no plans to close or sell the health center. However, changes need to be made to ensure the community gets the best healthcare it can.

To this end, Stergar and Putnam will work to ensure board members work toward the community’s best interests. The plan is for board members to be people who have used the hospital and health center. This would give the board a clear idea of what the community needs in health care to prevent any patient interests being overlooked, ignored or discriminated against.

According to Monte Turner, outreach coordinator at MCH and MRHC, the communities loved the opportunity to talk to the CEOs. He said Alberton was disappointed the town would not get a branch clinic. According to Turner, DeBorgia residents were delighted to have the CEOs visit and could not recall the last time an administration had done something like it.

Overall, Putnam, Stergar and Turner feel the meetings were a success. The communities seem to like the direction MCH/MRHC are headed in and the changes to be made sound like good ones. The CEOs plan to continue the meetings and hope to set more up in January.