Forum board rewrites a century of health care

Forum board rewrites a century of health care

The Forum Health board of trustees is falling back on an “advice of counsel” explanation for why the public is being kept in the dark as the board goes about the business of redefining health care in the Mahoning Valley.

There is no legal obligation for the board to keep what it knows secret. While it is generally wise to follow the advice of counsel, it is equally true that counsel works for the board, not vice versa. If the board wanted cover to be more open, the lawyers would be able to give it to them.

It is ironic that politicians in Washington, D.C., are under heavy fire from some quarters for not being more open as Congress works on national health-care reform. Meanwhile, only a few voices have been raised in the Mahoning Valley calling for the Forum board to be more open about its options as it works toward a sale of its assets as part of the health-care system’s bankruptcy.

Whatever happens in Washington is part of a structural reorganization that will take years to implement and will be subject to amendment. The consequences of the Forum board’s action will be swift and virtually irrevocable.

And, yet, few voices have been raised in protest. The most vocal call for more transparency has come from State Rep. Robert F. Hagan of Youngstown, and he says he’s been politely told by Phillip B. Dennison, Forum board chairman, that the board won’t be releasing any details of the bids received from potential buyers.

What’s on the block

And, so, such assets as the Northside Medical Center in Youngstown, Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren and Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital in Howland are subject to sale to a single bidder or multiple bidders in a process that will be closed to public knowledge or comment until the deed is virtually done.

These are assets that have been built up over generations — Northside’s roots go back 125 years — by communities that supported these medical centers through payment for services, through individual philanthropy and through hundreds of community fundraisers. Their fate will be decided by a combination of community members, doctors and hospital administrators serving on the board.

At the end of the day — that day being the Nov. 30 deadline for the board to report its decision on the offers to the bankruptcy court — some of Forum’s hospitals and the jobs of thousands of employees could survive, some could die, or all could become part of a competing health-care system, leaving the Mahoning Valley with, effectively, one major health-care provider.

What’s happening in Washington will affect everyone’s health care eventually, perhaps for the better, perhaps not. But what’s happening to Forum now is more immediate and arguably more important. And yet, the silence is deafening.