By Susan Stevenot Sullivan

After nine years of operating St. Joseph’s Hospital in Dahlonega, St. Joseph’s Health System, Inc. has announced it intends to sell the hospital to HealthTrust, Inc., of Nashville, Tenn.

When the hospital was purchased from the Lumpkin County Hospital Authority Dec. 31, 1985, the purchase was characterized by the new hospital administrator, Tommy Reddin, as motivated by the desire of the Sisters of Mercy, who sponsor the St. Joseph’s Health System, to reach out to the sick and the poor.

At that time the budget included more than $60,000 a year for treatment of the medically indigent, exceeding federal requirements. A $1 million trust fund was established so the interest could be used to help the medically indigent as well.

What happened to the dream of a St. Joseph’s Hospital at each end of Georgia 400, from suburban Atlanta to rural North Georgia?

According to Sister Jane Gerety, RSM, senior vice-president for sponsorship at St. Joseph’s Health System, a combination of financial losses and upheaval in the way of health care is provided made the sale necessary.

“We obviously purchased the hospital with very high hopes of maintaining it in the Dahlonega community,” she said. “I feel we’ve made a significant contribution, not only to the improvement of the hospital, but to the Dahlonega community.”

“It’s no secret that we have sustained losses there throughout these years,” she said. “It has been a struggle to maintain the hospital financially, but the bar (financial hurdle) has gotten higher. In the last eight years there have been revolutionary changes in health care, particularly in the Atlanta area.”

Managed care is a big part of those changes. Managed care results when alliances of physicians, insurance companies and medical service facilities agree on the price of each medical service provided within the alliance.

“Managed care means it (the Dahlonega hospital) needs to be hooked up with providers in the local area,” Sister Gerety said. HealthTrust, Inc. is affiliated with Lanier Park Regional Hospital 30 miles away in Gainesville and with Barrow Medical Center in Winder.

Networking with other providers over a larger area is the future of health care, she said.

“It used to be that you tried to do it all yourself,” Sister Gerety said. “You owned and operated the full array of services. Now health care involves joining with others to provide the full array of services.”

Local affiliation provides cost-cutting economies of scale, she explained, which are vital in maintaining expensive inpatient services as the health care industry shifts to a structure which provides the majority of care on an outpatient basis.

Filling inpatient beds at St. Joseph’s Dahlonega, has been a challenge, she said, yet a strategic plan completed two years ago indicated a continuing need for an inpatient facility there. “We realized it would be much more feasible for inpatient care to be supported by a local network,” she said.

“Although it is with sadness that the Sisters of Mercy and St. Joseph’s Health System leave Dahlonega,” Sister Gerety said, “we feel the provision of health care in the future…will be served by this change.”

Selection of a buyer was made carefully and with input from local members of the hospital’s board, she said.

“We did not sell to the highest bidder,” Sister Gerety emphasized. “Our primary concern was what would best serve the community.”

Sister Gerety said that the letter of intent, which documents the agreement at this point, specifies that HealthTrust, Inc. will continue to treat indigent patients as St. Joseph’s Hospital in Dahlonega did. “That was one of the characteristics we looked for in the agreement,” she said.

It is likely that St. Joseph’s Hospital in Atlanta will care for patients referred from the Dahlonega hospital, she said. As part of a regional network strategy with other hospitals “we will be looking for opportunities to do other kinds of programs (in Dahlonega), possibly clinics or education programs or health promotion. Ownership is not the only way to provide care and to do our ministry within certain communities.”

Preserving a Catholic perspective in alliances with diverse health care providers has become another challenge of the changing health care market, she said.

“We are always looking at ways to serve the needs of the community while preserving the character of St. Joseph’s health System in tertiary care and out on the street. We must be open to partnership with people who don’t share all our values and yet not lose our character as an excellent health care facility.”

Sister Marcia McKinley, RSM, has been a chaplain at St. Joseph’s Hospital, Dahlonega, since it was purchased with the sponsorship of her order.

“I was the first Mercy here and the last,” she said. “Part of the Mercy mission is to respond to the intrinsic dignity of each patient and each employee and that has made a difference. We look at the spiritual as well as the physical and emotional dimension of each and every patient.”

Another major aspect of the Mercy mission, responding to those in need, was also accomplished, she said.

“We are proud to say we never turned anyone away who needed care,” Sister McKinley said. “After nine years here I feel the mission will still be lived because it is part of the belief of the employees. I have no regrets leaving, knowing that the mission will go on.”

“I have been blessed working with the staff and all those I encountered here at the hospital,” she said.

Two Mercy sisters involved in a medical practice near the hospital plan to continue offering health care in the Dahlonega community.

According to Wesley Cason, office manager of Mountain Laurel OB/GYN, Sister Susanne Ashton, MD, RSM, and nurse Sister Agnese Neumann, RSM, will continue their practice, which involves caring for many indigent patients.

“It is a ministry,” he said. “That’s in our mission statement. We are not a typical medical practice at all. The practice will continue as it is.”

The fate of the $1 million trust for indigent care has not been decided, Sister Gerety said. The trust is held by Lumpkin County and will likely become part of the new owner’s responsibility to administer.

The letter of intent was approved by the St. Joseph’s Health System, Inc., board of trustees Aug. 4. After all details are finalized the sale is expected to be completed Oct. 31.