Debt Repayment Discussed at HCHD Meeting
Positive Hospital Report Given
By Will Johnson
Messenger Reporter
HOUSTON COUNTY – The Houston County Hospital District (HCHD) Board of Directors met in a regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, July 16 highlighted by a discussion of debt repayment and a positive hospital report.
Following the approval of minutes from previous meetings and the district’s financial report, Hospital Administrator Tommy Johnson addressed the board.
Originally, Johnson explained, the hospital owners – Drs. Kelly Tjelmeland and Subir Chhikara – were scheduled to give a quarterly report on Crockett Medical Center (CMC) but were unable to attend. Tjelmeland had just returned from a trip to Norway and Chhikara was still attending to patients, Johnson indicated.
As he continued, Johnson said, “Over the last quarter, we have had 1,768 visits. It tends to go up and down. May and June are fairly slow, as well as July. Summer is usually slower.”
In the emergency center, Johnson reported, just over 2,000 patients had been seen during the past quarter.
“That equates to roughly 700 per month, which is up over 100 over the last quarter,” he said.
He added the hospital had 50 inpatients, plus 17 observation patients during the quarter ending in June.
“That volume is not where it needs to be. It’s hit-and-miss. One time we will have five in there and then we will go two or three days with one. We would like to average about three per day. We have done 32 actual surgeries and on top of that we have done six GI cases. We had four swing-bed patients with about 28 days per stay. We had 654 outpatient, lab and radiology visits. It’s been pretty steady,” Johnson said.
Once Johnson concluded, HCHD President Barbara Crowson moved the meeting into the committee reports portion of the meeting.
Dina Pipes, chair of the ambulance committee, reported there had been 191 requests for service with 162 transports during the month of June. She added there had been 24 requests for the helicopter, but said there had only been three flights.
“The average time in the city (Crockett) was six minutes and 26 seconds. The county average time was 21 minutes and 47 seconds. The overall average was 10 minutes and nine seconds. There were nine calls for mutual aid to Grapeland and we took all nine of those,” Pipes said.
The next committee report was given by Erin Ford who chairs the facilities committee. He reported one chiller unit was completely dead and he was looking at possibilities to replace it. Ford explained he had the opportunity to purchase a unit from a hospital in Rockdale, but after speaking with the committee, it was decided not to proceed on the matter.
Following the facilities report, Karen Duncan gave the finance report and said “… the Texas Higher Education Commission does not necessarily want the money back, but we have reporting that is due on the use of those grant funds. With everything that was happening with Timberlands moving out, those reports were simply not submitted.”
Crowson added the HCHD board had enlisted the help of State Rep. Trent Ashby to help in the negotiations.
Pat Dickey, chair of the negotiations committee, reported her committee had been in talks with CHRISTUS and had received good news.
“CHRISTUS has agreed to give us a $120,000 gift and we will owe them $230,833 and have asked if we agreed to repay them at $15,000 per month beginning next month,” she said.
The board president replied, “We made them an offer, they countered, then we countered and only today they told us that they had accepted our counter offer. WE will get that settled and it is a big burden to get that off of us.”
Will Johnson may be contacted via e-mail at [email protected].
