ashe

Its sad, there has definitely been an acceleration of rural hospitals closing since 2010. In 2014 there was an estimated 40 rural hospitals close compared to 3 in 2010.

Between 5 and 10 years ago Appalachian Regional started converting watauga from an emergency based hospital to a full service health care provider. So it was foreseeable.

If they closed the doors, there is probably a good reason. Number one, the failure to adapt.

Ten years ago, even five years ago I am not sure anyone could have correctly forecast the changes to healthcare. And all of it is not necessarily for the good of the people. Many small facilities such as ours have shut the doors or converted to the "Doc In A Box" concept and sending the really sick to a larger facility.

The board has had very little to do with the changes being made. That is the difference than the past when they tried to manage every little detail(and failed miserably).

There are several practicing doctors on the Hospital Board currently. The Board has been trying to move the Hospital to profitability through offering increased services the last few years, but things do take time. There original plan was to turn the hospital to profitability within 5-10 years from the time they first started getting the 500k a year. They have been making progress.

That sounds more like the hospital board-----a bunch of Monday morning quarter backs. Results even look like too.

You have to have a plan, and their plan was remain the status quo. They should have been more proactive 10 years ago to the changing climate that reactive that built up debt. Debt that we are now helping pay for.

I think you "Vision" is based on " Monday morning quarterbacking "

It would have been hard 10 years ago to have had a vision of the hospital as it is today.

Let's see what news we have tomorrow from the CEO's from Appalachian Regional and Ashe Memorial on the Happy Time Show.

My point was they had no vision for the hospital. The only accomplishment the board has over the last 30 years is that they kept the doors open while accumulating debt. The excuse they always give was that we are a small county and there was no better way.

A group of individuals have tried to run small hospitals as a board for years on end. It worked until the leaps and bounds achieved in medicine today. Perfect example is Yadkins hospital and others in the region like in size that have fallen so far behind they can never catch up. A board of non medical professionals can not do it today. You must bring in outside professionals. The partnering with Forsyth is only a start. They along with Bapitst have walked away from others in the region.

"because they allowed it to become what it did"

Did you mean to say that as a joke?

AEV is well worth the money because it is an economic investment. Its actually what they should be spending money on....jobs.

The hospital can sustain itself, they have to transform from an Emergency room dependent where they can make money into a service dependent in which they can make a lot of money. We are seeing that happen now. Every previous board member should be gone because they allowed it to become what it did.

I fully support continuing to give the hospital the 500 grand. The voters of the county spoke with their vote and they expect the money to be used only for the hospital. I would hope that the mouth breathers with the exception of Rhodes would know the importance of the hospital. I would also hope the hospital continues to change with the current demand and what works to keep it afloat.

The hospital is not self sustaining and talking to some members of the Hospital Board they don't expect it to be self sustaining for a few more years. It just depends if you want a hospital or not, a greater priority I think than having an airport or a fire training base, because without a hospital you can kiss those tourist goodbye. (I think much like the numbers for the airport the numbers for tourism in the area are also highly inflated though).

Our county commissioners also gave 108,000 dollars to AEV, I wonder how much of that makes it back into the pockets of the politicians.

Looking at what the county has made, and paid out on that money pit, can you justify why anyone would lease it for more than a dollar?

So the place is worthless to sell other then the real estate. Yet we have poured 7.5 million bucks of taxpayer money into a worthless landing strip. This just adds more insult to injury.

So the only way to make it work in a lease is the county lease it for a buck and the county be responsible for nothing. This would save the taxpayers the budgeted amount blown out there each year.

No one with any business sense would lease the airport unless they could do so for a dollar a year, and the county be responsible for maintaining the runway. There's no money in it.

I had rather see the landing strip leased out, put the fire hut on part of the land that will be useless at the middle school when the new school is built.

Good idea. You just saved $850k in construction costs, and over $1million a year. The county won't even need a loan because next year's airport budget would cover it.