Hospital employees are upbeat as they anticipate new owner

By John Howell, Publisher

A chance exchange with Merit Health Batesville Administrator Travis Sisson prior to the opening of Thursday’s Panola Partnership Fall Forum left me encouraged about the future of the Batesville hospital after its acquisition from Community Health Systems by Curae Health, a Clinton, TN-based non-profit that focuses on healthcare needs in rural communities.
Sisson said that he is looking forward to the increased flexibility that Curae Health ownership will allow in tailoring the hospital to serving Panola County’s health needs.
“Our (Curae Health’s) CEO believes in small, local, rural hospitals; he’s passionate about it,”  Sisson said a short time later during opening remarks to the Partnership Forum audience.
Sisson said that to stay in Batesville as the local hospital CEO “was an easy decision for me. My wife and I are very happy here; we built our house here.”
“You’ll see us reaching out in the community more, providing more support in the community,” Sisson continued.
Later during the Forum I was privileged to share a table at the luncheon with four young people who have also been employed at Merit Health Batesville and who will also remain — as all present employees were told would happen — at their jobs. The four included a mixture of lifelong natives and transplants who have come and decided to stay.
It bodes well for the future of our hospital that its employees are looking forward to the challenge of transition that will allow them to tailor their services to our needs in Panola County.
It also reminds me that one of the underrated features of the Partnership’s Forum is the opportunity it gives us for chance encounters with people from whom we can learn.