Tri-Lakes Medical Center has scheduled during the next few days several events coinciding with National Hospital Week.

The hospital is hosting the Panola Partnership’s Mixer today from 5 to 7 p.m. On Wednesday Tri-Lakes will co-sponsor with Methodist Healthcare a health fair and screening in their front lobby from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. On Friday, the hospital will co-host a blood drive with Mississippi Blood Services whose donor coach will accept donations of blood from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.

And while Tri-Lakes is celebrating National Hospital Week, it is also a good time for Panola County to celebrate Tri-Lakes.

Consider:

— This time last year, the hospital was in chapter 11 bankruptcy. It had sought the bankruptcy court’s protection in August, 2007 and would remain in bankruptcy until August 2009.

— During those two years, the hospital’s continued operation was never a foregone conclusion. Never was the hospital’s continued operation more in doubt than during those final days of tense negotiation last August. Panola County came very close to seeing the hospital’s employees laid off and its buildings and equipment sold at auction.

Now in its ninth month under local physician ownership, Tri-Lakes has set a phenomenal pace in giving Panola County residents reason to be confident that quality medical care is available to us right here at home. It started in the emergency room with an emphasis on cutting the time that patients waited for treatment while adding capacity to speed laboratory tests, other functions and medical staff to decrease time required to complete treatments.

While that was going on in the emergency room, new equipment was being added throughout the hospital, new employees were added and new physicians practicing new specialties were being recruited. The Tri-Lakes Behavioral Health Center  — the west campus — has been remodeled and programs have been added to meet the mental health needs of residents of this area.

While that was going on at the hospital’s two campuses and its outpatient clinics, hospital leaders have been reaching out into the community, establishing liaisons with other providers of health, education and social services. Their goal is to learn where gaps exist, detect duplications of services and to establish partnership with these entities to create a greater synergy of health service to the people of Panola County.

And while that was going on, a major industry in Panola County was saved. Tri-Lakes employs 375 people full time and part time with an annual payroll of $15 million in salaries and contract labor. Tri-Lakes spends another $8 million for purchased goods and services with an emphasis on giving local vendors priority where possible. That makes it an industry with a major economic impact on the county for its payroll alone, but there’s a further benefit from a hospital. As important to our economy as are manufacturers creating products for consumer use, the hospital is even more important. The ability of a community to provide quality medical care is as much the foundation for successful economic development and industrial recruitment as the quality of education a community offers. Among questions asked early by outsiders considering relocation to Panola County are, “What about your schools?” and “What about your hospital?”

Having a hospital where we are confident that we will receive quality treatment and/or timely, appropriate referrals for ourselves and our loved ones brings with it a value not measured in dollars. That’s called quality of life. Tri-Lakes has raised that measure noticeably in nine short months.

While Tri-Lakes Medical Center is celebrating National Hospital Week May 9-15, let’s celebrate Tri-Lakes as well. Good things have happened and more are on the way!