The current controversies and future of the Eureka Springs Hospital continued to be the primary topic of discussion for the Eureka Springs City Council at the council’s regular meeting Monday, April 14.

Two agenda items that focused on the administration and finances of the hospital took up most of the meeting as council members continued to voice their opinions about ongoing issues with the facility.

Specifically, council members wanted to know where the hospital is headed, discussing potential proposals from Mercy health system or Dr. John House to assume management of the facility. Some council members continued to call for the removal of administrators Cynthia Asbury and Jodi Edmondson.

“I want the hospital commission to understand that we’re certainly not trying to micromanage them, or to manage the hospital. That’s not what we’re after,” council member Terry McClung said. “We do feel that we have an obligation to the city to be aware of what’s going on, and any suggestions that we hear and when there’s the rift that’s going on now and it’s very prevalent, it’s our obligation to look into it and try to help with recommendations for fixing things. Not that what we’re going to say is going to actually come to fruition, but you know that we’re involved, and we’re not stupid people sitting around this table.

“We kind of understand how it all works to some degree, at least in the management end of it.”

Council members questioned commission chair Sandy Martin on a handful of topics, specifically about the future of the hospital after revelations that representatives from Mercy have shown interest in possibly taking over the facility.

“I, too, have heard about Mercy’s interest, and it’s coming through Berryville,” McClung said. “But it’s not just Berryville that’s interested, it’s Mercy, the Mercy system that’s interested, and to me something like that, if you can get them to come in. I mean, that improves your credibility immediately … they’re a force to reckon with in the medical industry… “Whether they’re actually going to come through with something, I can’t say, but I think it definitely has to be given the opportunity to grow if it’s there. Just because of what they have to offer.”

Martin reminded the council that there are two finalists from a slew of applicants for the hospital’s CEO position, and House is scheduled to attend the hospital commission’s monthly meeting on Monday, April 21, to discuss his proposal for taking over the hospital.

The focus of conversation however, was on Mercy’s interest after council member David Avanzino revealed that emails from Mercy vice president of patient services Jason Wildeman and Mercy Berryville administrator Tom Guhr, which were forwarded to Avanzino, indicated the company’s interest in the Eureka Springs facility.

Martin indicated she was aware of Mercy’s interest and had recently reached out to Wildeman.

The Times-Echo has since confirmed that Martin is scheduled to meet with Guhr at 1:30 p.m. Friday, April 18, to discuss Mercy’s potential proposal.

Martin was asked by council members if the commission would realistically consider the possibility of an offer from Mercy since the process of selecting a new CEO is in its final stages.

“We’re going to consider it, absolutely,” Martin told council members. “We want to meet, and we feel like we have an obligation first and foremost to Dr. House because he submitted his interest awhile back. We did get a more detailed and revised proposal from him that we want to discuss with and then hopefully get a meeting set up soon with Jason and Mercy and see what their level of interest is and where we need to go from there.

“At that point, if it’s decided that we need to pursue that and it’s a good option, we will do the formal RFP.”

Any decision approved by the commission will have to get an OK from council members, Mayor Butch Berry said at the meeting.

‘TREADING WATER’

Some council members continued to voice their displeasure with hospital administration even after a recent workshop between the council and the hospital commission.

“I feel like that we are still delayed and that we’re just treading water,” council member Susane Gruning said. “We have met with the hospital commission. We have expressed our concerns repeatedly. I understand that there is still a hunt for a CEO. The last we heard there were some great possibilities, but no one has been hired. Despite repeated and clear concerns expressed by both the community and the city council, the current administration still remains, and it’s an administration in which there is little to no trust and confidence, and nothing yet seems to be changing.”

Council members noted that the hospital is still on blood divert and a lack of customer confidence continues to negatively impact the facility’s finances.

“I think the Titanic is still headed towards the iceberg,” council member Harry Meyer said. “It’s not a joke.”

Meyer said while Martin has said that, despite being on divert, the hospital could effectively treat heart attack patients, his cardiologist cautioned against it in the current state.

“I would not recommend anyone going to this emergency room if it doesn’t have a fully staffed lab,” Meyer said. “I heard there was two lab people that came and left because of whatever. And nurses are now carrying blood samples to Berryville, not commission members. They don’t have phlebotomists. … I know that I was gaslighted during that workshop because, in fact, you don’t want to go to a hospital that does not have a lab operating if you suspect you’re having a heart attack. Time is of the essence. What’s going to happen? People are coming and going. … It’s been months now. No staff in the lab. It’s disturbing.

“I think the CEO, the CFO have run everyone off. They’ve created a hostile environment, and it’s not going to get any better unless they’re gone …” Martin said the lab is up and running and can handle heart attack patients, using an example of a city employee who was recently treated at the hospital.

“On the lab issue, the lab is up and running,” Matin said. “We can handle heart attacks. We’re on blood divert. We have four RPNs. We have one full-time tech. We have a lab director, a pathologist and a lab manager. …. But the only divert we’re on in the lab is blood divert, which means if dispatch gets a call and it’s somebody that needs blood or transfusion, they take them somewhere else. Anything else comes to us, but the lab is running.”

Berry responded: “Speaking of heart attacks, I think somebody down at the wastewater treatment plant had a heart attack and went to our hospital, wasn’t it?”

Martin said the hospital treated the employe “just fine.”

“From what I understand, he felt like he got satisfactory and excellent [care],” Berry said.

FINANCIAL QUESTIONS Council member Rachael Moyer questioned the hospital’s financial situation — especially moving forward — after conducting what she called a “12-month rolling data analysis, financial analysis” with an emphasis on the past six months, she said.

“I’m concerned,” Moyer said. “Before today I was concerned that maybe full management wasn’t being considered, and again the only reason that I think this is even before city council is because of the sort of lack of trust and continuing stories that have a similar element to them. So, because I requested that huge stack of data, I actually took all the information that was in those … and I re-created Excel worksheets to do what’s called a 12-month rolling data analysis, financial analysis.

“… So, this rolling 12-month financial analysis is pretty common, something that you can do to kind of filter out sort of cyclical changes over the year. … This is often used to show trends in revenue and expenses, and it’s really helpful for comparing to budgets.”

Three things stood out, Moyer told council members.

“…The expenses, which particularly related to staffing are trending up, dramatically so,” she said. “At the same time, revenues are down. So, when you adjust for a one-time payment of $1.7 million and you just look at the net revenue, you can see that the revenue is going down. So, you have expenses going up and revenues going down. At some point, those things are going to meet, right? And you’re going to run out of money. So, that was my initial purpose in bringing this forward.

“Then, finally, I took the last six months of data … so, this is consistency on the administration side. …. So just using the last six months of the data, I projected to see where we might end up at the end of the year. And it looks like we could lose up to a half a million dollars. That’s with nothing changing.”

Her financial analysis presents some eye-opening issues moving forward, Moyer said.

“What I do think is clear is that in the current operating form of the hospital, we have some significant financial challenges,” she said. “I think even Sandy and the commission acknowledge this, but I’m not sure that everyone is on the same page about how significant the financial challenges are.

“So, this is why I’m bringing it to the council. What do we do about that? I mean, we’re involved in this scenario because of community feedback, and now because of a concern about whether or not we’re going to be able to continue to keep the hospital open.”

Martin told the council that the commission is fully aware of the financial situation of the hospital and adjustments to the budget are being planned.

“The budget is different. Absolutely it’s different,” Martin said. “Remember when we did the budget and remember what we went through. I think I mentioned at the workshop that we are going to review our budget. We didn’t have a baseline until April of last year and that was kind of iffy to start with the [Rural Emergency Hospital designation]. We’re aware of the financial situation, very aware of it. We’re going to be taking a couple of more hits on some major expenses, like we did last month. We had to buy about $320,000 worth of technology equipment, as we have to build our entire network over again. …” The hospital’s lack of community confidence isn’t helping either, Martin added.

“We didn’t anticipate it to be that when we did the budget,” she said. “We anticipated and developed the budget based on what we thought was the reality of REH going without interruption, and that didn’t happen. So, we know that we have to revise our budget and be more conservative with it. We have, according to the Department of Finance and Administration, we have over 236 days’ worth of cash on hand. … We’re going to bring somebody from the Arkansas State Hospital Association up to give a state of the state, and there are some hospitals that have nine days cash, and there are many hospitals that are now having to pay daily in cash to their suppliers and their vendors and their staff. So, it’s not an easy time for a lot of hospitals. We’re in a little bit better shape than that. Plus, we have about $7 million in the bank.

“So are we concerned about it? Yes, absolutely we are. We have to build the revenue back up. We’ve lost almost a year, and we need to build that back up Are we aware of it? Absolutely we’re aware of it. And we’re as concerned as you are. But we have no intention to see the hospital close or go into deep debt.”

New programs and services should help those financial numbers as well, Martin said.

“What’s going to change the directory is hopefully stabilizing all the departments and then being able to start building outpatient services and other services that are there,” she said. “Obviously getting confidence back to get more referrals. We’ve got a lot of work to do there. We had an onboarding meeting with UAMS and IDHI for telehealth to kick that off soon. We think that’s going to help our revenue and that’s going to help our care to be able to reach more people more effectively.”

Martin said the commission is trying to work on a date to have a second workshop with the council to take a deeper look at hospital finances.

OTHER HOSPITAL TOPICS At the urging of some council members, Berry said it was his understanding that hospital workshops would be held at The Auditorium moving forward.

While hospital meetings have routinely been held at The Aud and video recorded on YouTube, workshops have been taking place in a small room at 25 Norris, across the street from the hospital. Those meetings had been only audio recorded.

“Good,” council member Steve Holifield said. “Because, I think the transparency is real important. It’s building the trust back with the community. I understand that Sandy said it’s convenient up there to get staff to come over and talk to them, but I think I think right now, especially, they need to build a community trust back and that needs to happen here.”

Avanzino also commented on claims from former employees Richard and Samantha Webb, who spoke during public comments and mentioned a memo they said was once sent out by hospital administration forbidding employees from discussing certain topics.

“The current administration sent out a memo to all employees that was pretty much a gag order. Is that true?” Avanzino said. “That they would face disciplinary action?

Martin responded: “I know nothing about that. Nothing was sent out. No one would ever do that.”

Berry added, “Has anybody seen a copy of that?”

“The only thing I know that is so distantly connected to that is the previous CEO sent the commission an email stating that she didn’t want us to have interaction with the employees,” Martin said. “And I mentioned that at the workshop…” Copies of email correspondence obtained by the Times-Echo show that Angie Shaw, who at the time was the hospital’s CEO, emailed members of the hospital commission on Sept. 12, 2024, informing them that requests to meet with any staff member within the hospital must be submitted directly to her office.

Martin responded: “Excellent! Let me know how I can help and support you! Micromanaging by commissioner( s) needs to

stop.”

The commission terminated Shaw at the conclusion of a special meeting less than two months later, on Nov. 1, 2024.

‘WHERE ARE YOU GETTING YOUR INFORMATION?’ During public comments, Richard and Samantha Webb disputed what they described as Martin’s dismissal of complaints by former hospital employees.

“In recent comments, Ms. Sandy Martin stated that the 60-plus people that have came before all of you for months are all just disgruntled employees and that it was because they were all unhappy or confused over transitioning to a new system and/or designation,” Richard Webb said. “Well, that wasn’t that. Since the latter part of 2023, CFO Cynthia Asbury and HR director and acting CEO Jodi Edmondson have been wrongfully terminating, intimidating and bullying people that work there and lying about it. So our question to you, Ms. Martin, is: Where’s your proof that we’re not telling the truth? All the 60-plus people that have came forward for months with their stories of what happened to them have proof they are telling the truth. So Ms. Martin, do you have proof they aren’t? Where are you getting your information from? Because it’s not coming from actual experience and it couldn’t be, because you weren’t there. We were. So again, where are you getting your information from, from the very people responsible for the whole mess?

“My wife and I and all the other good people that have been wronged challenge you to either provide proof that we’re lying or be quiet. In other words, either provide proof that we’re all lying or stop insulting us all by saying it didn’t happen, because it did. Also, Ms. Martin, you have stated that these wrongs were unintentional mistakes. Well, Ms Martin, nothing could be further from the truth. They weren’t mistakes, and it was all very intentional.”

Samantha Webb echoed her husband.

“It’s interesting and very telling that while we continue to be seen as disgruntled and looked at with questioning eyes, the administration is still drawing a paycheck,” Samantha Webb said. “There’s no investigation, business as usual. And if you cared so damn much, one would think the hospital would have been on the agenda long before now. There would be no veto, much less one that came out three days later, no canceled meetings. You might as well look at all of us and admit, ‘you’re right, I don’t care.’

“… This is not about whether the hospital stays open or not. It’s not about getting our jobs back. It’s about accountability. It’s about transparency. …” Heather Wilson, a member of the city advertising and promotion commission, said she has received threats about her vocal opinions about the hospital in recent months.

“I am somebody that is receiving threats because of speaking out on the hospital like, ‘I know where you sleep at night,’ and ‘I’m going to get rid of you,’ ” Wilson said.

Wilson described a pattern of hospital deficiencies for the past handful of years, mentioning a doctor who she said had his license temporarily suspended between 2015 and 2020, and another hospital employee who was arrested at the facility and is serving a 10-year prison sentence.

“I don’t know what background checks, if any, were performed on the doctor. I hope there were,” she said. “We know no background check was performed on the woman, who was arrested and is now serving 10 years in prison.”

OTHER COUNCIL BUSINESS Public works director Simon Wiley told council members that the city had no current water leaks that he was aware of, a positive overall step.

“Our percentage of water loss has gone down dramatically,” Wiley said. “We’re down to like … 42 percent off the top of my head, which is pretty great considering we were like at almost 60 percent. Not bad. There’s still work to be done, but it’s a vast improvement over where we were.”

Avanzino told commissioners that he recently had a Zoom meeting with the company Tushy about a potential bidet program for the city.

“They are super, super excited that this is actually even possible,” Avanzino said. “They’ve never done anything like this before. They’ve done events before in different cities, but not at this level to actually help a city with its wastewater problem. They’re super excited. They’re working out the details.

“We see some sort of huge event in Basin Park.”

The event could include possible booths where residents could “experience” a bidet.

“They let you experience it,” Avanzino said. “It’s a tented situation, and then people come out and kind of give their, what their experience was. And it’s very funny. You can find it on YouTube.

“There’s also a booth where they do confessions, bathroom confessions, about what you think about when you’re sitting on the toilet. So it’s a very funny, great PR campaign, great for the city.

“At this point, all I’m waiting on is to hear from the larger creative team. And once I do that, then Mayor, I’ll involve you in those conversations as well if you want to be involved, and Simon as well.”

The council’s next regular meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday, April 28, in the basement of The Auditorium.