Forum board shouldn’t decide system’s fate in secret

Forum board shouldn’t decide system’s fate in secret

The board of directors of Forum Health has surprised this community too many times. The people of the Mahoning Valley should not be told to wait patiently for two weeks while the board secretly mulls over the offers that have been received for the health system’s assets.

As reported Saturday, Forum spokesman Vince Bevacqua said the health-care system intends to “honor the confidentiality agreement through the evaluation phase and not offer comment until a decision has been made. The next decision deadline is Nov. 30.”

There is no honor in secretly deciding the fate of historic community assets that include Northside Medical Center in Youngstown, Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren and Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital in Howland.

As a story on A1 reports today, the Forum board managed to commit millions of dollars in assets of a charitable trust that predated the creation of Forum without public input or knowledge. As a result, at least some of the money pledged in good faith by benefactors rich and poor over decades may end up paying off the enormous debt that the Forum board took on.

The board also abandoned its commitment to Tod Children’s Hospital and sold off the Beeghly Medical Center, its suburban anchor, with little or no public input.

The time for “honoring confidentiality” is past.

An official role

Last week, public officials from throughout the area made a long overdue show of solidarity outside Forum’s Northside Medical Center. Those officials must act quickly to break down the wall of secrecy Forum’s board of directors is building at this pivotal point in the bankruptcy process.

Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams, area state Reps. Robert Hagan, Ronald V. Gerberry, Sandra Stabile Harwood, Tom Letson and Mark Okey, state Sens. Joe Schiavoni and Capri Cafaro, and U.S. Reps. Tim Ryan and Charlie Wilson all have a role to play. Perhaps not individually, but among them they know all the members of the Forum board. None should delay in reaching out to the board members they know and urging them in the strongest possible terms to make the bids public well before a deal is sealed.

The board members are not legally bound to keep the offers secret; they are choosing to do so. If the community’s elected leaders cannot persuade them to open the process, who can?

Not all the Forum board’s decisions were made by the very same people. The composition of the board has changed over the years.

But regardless of whether the members are old or new, the board has established a track record that militates against its being permitted to secretly make what could be the final decision on the fate of health care as we have come to know it in the Mahoning Valley.