Hospitals? Clinic? Rec/Wellness? Who Knows?

During our break I posted a story on our website about major changes coming to Lakewood Hospital, possibly including either the Cleveland Clinic ending their agreement, or downsizing the size of our current hospital to that of an Emergency Care Center. Or that the hospital would become a “Wellness Center,” instead of the less popular term, “Recreation Center” being shopped around earlier in 2013 by Mayor Summers and Planning Director Dru Siley.

Since my original posting, I have talked to hundreds of people and read hundreds of pages of agreements and communications between the City of Lakewood and Lakewood Hospital Association (LHA), as well as between LHA and the Cleveland Clinic, and have come to the same conclusions I originally stated. We are sorting out facts from rumors as fast as we can on the Observation Deck.

When I posted, “The Clinic will announce in the 1st quarter of 2015, changes at Lakewood Hospital,” Mary Louise Madigan, Lakewood City Council President, was quickly quoted by a Cleveland.com article on the same topic proclaiming, “I have heard rumors too…” “…maybe Metro.” These words were immediately repeated by every echo chamber on the net.

WHAT NONE OF THEM ASKED OR MENTIONED WAS, “Why does the City Council Representative on the Hospital Board of Trustees have to announce that she has heard rumors too?”  Why wouldn’t she simply say, “As a Hospital Board of Trustees member let me tell you THESE FACTS?” Why the spin?

Days later in an interview, Mayor Summers repeated a similar sentiment about the changing face of healthcare in Lakewood in his own comments adding, “There is talk of reducing the number of beds.” He never mentioned that he heads The Hospital Association and should be able to speak definitively with FACTS even if those facts are limited to saying that he can’t comment at this time. Why the games?

Instead, his comments suggested that he was unaware of the conversations occurring on a board he leads. If Mayor Summers really is unaware of all of this, why was he shopping a “Recreation Center built on Hospital property” to the Lakewood Board of Education last January? Why was he asking the Board of Education to back him on a tax raise to help pay for it? The School Board told Mayor Summers and Dru Siley that they couldn’t do it as they had just asked the good residents of Lakewood for a levy and a bond issue for the schools which were both passed.

It was also around this time that Mayor Summers and City Hall started the Recreation Committee, a name that was then changed to the “Active Lifestyle Committee,” to study the need for better recreation in Lakewood, i.e. a recreation center, though the schools had just finished a survey on recreation.

What triggered me going public on this last week was not that the “Recreation Center” was re-branded a “Wellness Center” in discussions, but that the term “Hospital” had left the conversations completely. After months of rumors they had dropped the word “Hospital” completely from the conversation and started talking about only having an Emergency Care Center and a Rec/Wellness center. I thought this signaled a drastic change in Lakewood’s healthcare landscape that certainly warranted a discussion within the community. We own the Lakewood Hospital (Assoc.), and it is our largest employer. We deserve to hear more information from the people involved. Interestingly, the key players who are the Hospital Association, City Council, LH Foundation, and the Active Lifestyle Committee, all share some key members.

We have not yet brought The Cleveland Clinic or their services into this discussion. I want to make clear that this discussion isn’t about the quality or the lack of quality care that Cleveland Clinic provides in Lakewood. Right now, it’s business as usual for the Cleveland Clinic, who are still dedicated to providing healthcare in Lakewood. The Clinic would love to be the healthcare provider for 51,000 Lakewoodites. They have two other facilities in Lakewood and there are no rumors surrounding them.

Another key piece of this puzzle can be found in Lakewood’s own Charter. In the latest Charter Review--yes it pays to pay attention-- read Amendment XV from the City Charter Review 2014. It says: “Article XV is no longer applicable as Lakewood Hospital is a leased facility and will remain as such for the foreseeable future. It is improbable that the city would ever run the hospital as in the past as the structure of healthcare has permanently changed. Thus 11.1(e) permits the city to lease the hospital on terms set by council after the expiration of the current lease to the Cleveland Clinic-managed Lakewood Hospital Association. This could be a renewal of the current lease as well as a new lease.”

What this means is that at the cancellation of the agreement with the Clinic, the City could change the purpose of the Lakewood Hospital Association or possibly dissolve it, which would allow the city to take the land currently leased by the Lakewood Hospital Association, and use it for any reason they see fit, like building a rec center, errrr wellness thingy. That would be a massive change to the City of Lakewood, and our ability to control our healthcare future, something other administrations have worked hard to protect for decades.

I cannot answer if we need a Hospital more than a Recreation Center, that is above my pay grade. But what I can do is ask what happens to the property, what happens to the nearly $30 Million dollars the Lakewood Hospital Foundation (a completely separate entity from LHA) has in the bank? Where does that go, or is that absorbed into “DowntowN” Lakewood-- an area that has already taken millions of dollars to PROVE just how successful it is?

In what has been described by past Lakewood mayors to me as, “the biggest thing to happen in Lakewood in decades,” where is the discussion between the City and us, the residents that they are elected to serve? Where are the facts? It is hard to find out who even started the discussion this time around. Law Director Kevin Butler is on record as saying in 2010, “The Clinic hates to reopen the contract for renegotiations…” So why did they this time? Did they, or did the City or the Hospital Association open this Pandora’s box?

As residents of Lakewood, we own Lakewood Hospital. Our representation of this ownership is through the 23 members of the LHA Trustees. If a major change is being made to the City of Lakewood’s healthcare options, the Hospital we own and control, and the property of Downtown Lakewood itself, don’t we have a right to know? So many questions, so many things unclear, and the people who could clarify the situation seem as befuddled as the average man on the street.

So let me ask again…
… If the Lakewood Hospital Association is changed by the Lakewood City Council, then what happens to the millions of dollars in property the Association leases from the city and re-leases to the Cleveland Clinic?
 … What happens to the $30 million dollars that is currently sitting in the bank account of the very successful Lakewood Hospital Foundation?

The Foundation exists to help the Hospital Association raise money for capital improvements to the property. They been very successful in raising both funds for and awareness of Lakewood Hospital. They are the ones behind so many great events like the Ambulance Chase and Starry Night, two premiere events in Lakewood. Are they versatile enough to adapt to any changes in the Hospital Association or dissolution?

What happens to the Lakewood tax base, and Lakewood non-profits that benefit from the hospital’s presence and philanthropy? At one point early on in this project, a member of the Deck called the Hospital out on the topic of taxes. The Clinic invited me over with some accountants to look at their books, and help us understand their “tax-exempt” status. Fred DeGrandis, of the Cleveland Clinic, talked to me while they were going back and forth, telling me that the The Cleveland Clinic puts over $6 million dollars a year into various Lakewood non-profits and community projects, like North Coast Health Care, LakewoodAlive, Lakewood Community Services Center, etc. The people looking at the books came up with a figure of around $3.5 million that the Hospital would have owed in taxes had they not been exempt. It was a real eye-opener.

Now, add in the loss of income tax from the 600 hospital employees who eat in DowntowN, shop DowntowN, and live in Lakewood. Then the major loss to the non-profits, the loss to the Lakewood School System, Lakewood Public Library, and the University of Akron-- all things Lakewood Hospital has been active in. While Mayor Summers speaks of the mobile pediatric units going to schools, what happens to them? What happens to the mobile health units that work with the Senior Homes in the area? And then we have the loss of the doctors that fill the units around the hospital, and finally, and most important, we have the loss of any ability to control our city’s healthcare future, possibly ever again.

What do we gain from these possible changes? It is hard to say, as those who could answer the questions are not coming forward with their plans. No matter how this proceeds, and I have no reason to change my original projection; we lose our healthcare future and throw it away on a handful of magic beans, that when planted grow a rec/wellness center that continues to consume public money forever.

Lakewood needs healthcare, and we need straight talk about it.