Within the last 10-15 years the Mississippi County Hospital System (MCHS) has been leased to three companies, including Baptist, Ameris and then most recently Quorum Health Resources (QHR).
In March of 2009, Ameris was terminated and QHR was hired to stabilize the hospital system that had collapsed.
Now, the MCHS has officially entered an administrative service agreement with St. Bernards Healthcare.
Mississippi County Hospital Systems CEO Chris Raymer said, “Having a local organization like St. Bernards that understands this market and our patient population is a fantastic opportunity for the patients and staff members of the Mississippi County Hospital System, as well as the Osceola and Blytheville communities. We are looking forward to a long and productive relationship with St. Bernards.”
Senior Vice President of Regional Services for St. Bernards Healthcare added, “At St. Bernards, our mission is to provide Christ-like healing to the community and, in our continued efforts to provide services to more individuals, we are proud to enter into this agreement with Mississippi County Hospital System.”
According to the chairman of the Missippi County Hospital board John Logan, St. Bernards contacted Raymer about a year ago. Both sides talked and when the contract was up between MCHS and QHR they would like to enter an agreement with St. Bernards.
Logan stated members of the board met with lawyers and representatives from QHR in October and came to the agreement that they would break off from QHR on Oct. 31. St. Bernards then took over on Nov. 1.
Currently there are two clinics, one in Blytheville and one in Osceola, for a cardiologist from St. Bernards to come in.
“We are not looking to be a huge hospital,” Logan explained. “We are looking to serve the people of this community and if they come to our hospital and see there’s a need to go somewhere else we will ship them off to St. Bernards for a specialist or to Memphis or to Little Rock if they need them.”
Logan stated the Blytheville hospital will continue to be Great River Medical Center, while the Osceola hospital will remain South Mississippi County Regional Medical Center.
Logan added that MCHS is better since Ameris left. They are trying to improve their services and will make some changes and upgrades to the hospital every month.
The Mississippi County Hospital board would love to bring in new doctors but according to Logan they’re very hard to find.
Quorum Court Finance Chairman Michael White added, “Honestly, I think it is a really, really positive move both for Mississippi County and St. Bernards. Several years ago, I tried to initiate a relationship between the county and St. Bernards in a clinic over at Manila and at that time I was asking to utilize economic development funds to build a building and infrastructure to build a St. Bernards clinic under Dr. Tommy Wagner, out there in Manila where Dr. Wagner has his clinic now.”
“I thought at that time that relationship between St. Bernards and Mississippi County was important and I still think it’s important maybe even more so today than it was back then,” he continued. “The Mississippi County Hospital Board has done an excellent job of saving, managing and maintaining our county hospital system, but rural healthcare in the United States is in trouble and while we got an initial boost from Obamacare that has slowly morphed and changed Obamacare has since the election of Trump and some of the benefits that we were seeing in rural healthcare for small, rural hospitals like ours have slowly degraded and it is not as quite as good as it was for the hospital system as it was two-years ago. It’s a struggle to keep a hospital our size open, it truly is. So, my understanding of what the hospital board is doing is they are replacing the company QHR and the management system of the Mississippi County Hospital System and contracting with St. Bernards for that same management and that brings many benefits from St. Bernards over to Mississippi County. Experience. Resources. We will fall under some of their umbrellas of protection that we have been able to finance and maintain on our own that St. Bernards will help us take care of. They have been obviously the group at St. Bernards, the Nuns and their management team, over there has been very successful at St. Bernards. I think it is going to be a really, really positive move. I applaud the Mississippi County Hospital Board for making this transaction and change in management.”
County Judge Terri Brassfield thinks that St. Bernards and the county will have a great relationship.
“I have worked some with the existing hospital board and they have a fine board who wants to serve in this community and make the hospital better and better and when I heard St. Bernards was being sought after and then it was agreed upon to work with our hospital in a management form,” Brassfield said. “I was very pleased, because I think it will be a great relationship, I think it will be a great asset to us and I think that St. Bernards has a good name and that we will share in the success of St. Bernards and the success of our own hospital here and put those two together and I think it will be a very good thing for Mississippi County.”