Martha Jefferson is getting swallowed up, the Daily Progress reports. They’re merging with Sentara Healthcare, a non-profit healthcare conglomerate that owns eight hospitals in Virginia and North Carolina. In a statement on their website, Martha Jefferson says that the process will take about six months, and is subject to regulatory approval.
Some of the most obvious concerns here are how this will affect quality of care, whether Martha Jefferson (as an entity and as a collection of employees) is served well by this move, and if any layoffs are likely to result from redundancies created by the merger.
As an MJH user who wishes nothing would ever change there, and who has learned since 1950 to expect the worst in America when -anything- changes, I’m oddly pleased with this merge. There are so many worse options, such as selling us out to profiteers.
Americans are moral perverts where money is concerned. Usually board members don’t think about the cost to others when they’re offered money enough for a life of luxury for turning a community hospital over to plunderers.
This Board could have enriched themselves this way at the community’s expense, and didn’t.
Thank you.
Dare we hope the new operators demand a higher standard from the kitchen? In my last stay a few years ago, the food was beyond awful and the meal planning was worse. It was on the level of what’s served in the dining hall at the state pen. (I was on a fact-finding board, there only as a guest. Honest.)
My nurse explained that MJH had a “dietician” weaned on W.VA public school cafeterias and so knew nothing of food quality or palatability, but came cheap and satisfied the need for credentials.
Make a splash, Sentara. Revamp the patient menus and raise the food quality. Show us you know this isn’t Appalachia.
There are too many of us old people around to layoff anybody.
I was visiting a friend at the hospital recently and he and I found nothing wrng with the food we were served. We noticed a couple of acquaintances we boh know and they didn’t seem to have any problem with the food either. Perhaps some should have a catering service deliver their food to their rooms which should help keep the costs down for the rest of us. Personally, I’m glad they got the employee from W. Va. and not locally. I’ve eaten in the local schools or at least tried to.
Larry: Not sure how the board could have made money off any outcome. It’s a nonprofit and the board members are volunteers. They don’t own it. (The acquirer here is a nonprofit too.)