There is currently a movement afoot “on behalf of a group of citizens that will be making an offer to purchase the hospital which is currently in Bankruptcy.”

“I hope that you will join me in supporting local ownership. By supporting this group of citizens you will help insure that our community has healthcare and much needed jobs,” according to a statement from Dr. David A. Ball.

“Local ownership would be in the form of a newly formed non-profit corporation governed by a board of directors,” according to a statement of support that accompanied Dr. Ball’s faxed message. The statement provides a place for the recipient’s signature and is directed to the United States Department of Agriculture, which guaranteed the loan made in 2005 by UPS Bank to purchase the facility from the city and county.

“I support local ownership of the hospital to insure the community has access to a hospital and healthcare. I support the 500 to 600 jobs the hospital can provide when it is operated efficiently,” the statement concludes, right over the blank space for the recipient’s signature.

Laudable motives; worthy goals; reputable spokesman. Yet we can’t shake the “been-there, done-that” feeling.

After all, it was a 501 3c non-profit corporation — Physicians and Surgeons Hospital Group — that was formed in 2005 to purchase the Tri-Lakes Medical Center from the city and county.

(True, Dr. Robert Corkern and Ray Shoemaker were the faces of the purchase. They opted to oversee the formation of a non-profit corporation to qualify for the USDA-guaranteed financing.

Physicians and Surgeons Hospital Group on Nov. 15, 2005, leased the management responsibilities to Corkern’s Batesville Hospital Management, Inc., a for-profit corporation.)

Fast forward to November, 2008 and we see a proposed “statement of support” that makes no reference to who is going to manage the hospital. The only new feature of the current proposal is the creation of a Citizens Advisory Board “to work hand in hand with the Board of Directors of the Hospital on matters such as improving the community’s support and use of the hospital, … serving as eyes and ears in the community for feedback on major issues … .”

Still, there’s no indication who would comprise the board of directors of this new non-profit corporation, how they would be chosen or to whom they would be answer.

And “local control” has been the mantra of hospital interests in this community dating back at least to 1990 when Methodist Health Systems was interested in leasing the now-closed North Panola Community Hospital if — and this proved to be too big an “if” — it could also lease the South Panola Community Hospital.

Methodist’s proposal was rejected hands-down by the trustees of the South Panola Community Hospital, who chose instead an “affiliation” with Memphis’ Baptist Hospital “for the simple reason that it allows us to reap benefits through affiliation but we control our destiny,” a SP hospital spokesman told The Southern Reporter in October, 1990.

Baptist later acquired the Oxford-Lafayette County Hospital and turned the facility into the thriving medical enterprise and economic engine it has become today.

The point is that as much as the idea of local control appeals to us, it may be time to admit that hospital management and administration has become such an exacting specialty that it may need to come from outside the community.

This business of a locally-controlled non-profit corporation sounds all too familiar, even with the addition of an advisory board.

We must get it right this time. We won’t get another chance.