By JO ANNE TROXEL, ROXANNE
KLINGENSMITH, JESSIE CLOSE,
GLENN CLOSE, BETH SIRR
Guest columnists
For centuries, hospitals, physicians and communities shared a common moral compass that aligned with the best interests of patients. Those running hospitals provided the patient care, and knowing the suffering kept priorities clear: What do patients need? How can we help them?
During our lifetime, hospital priorities and motives have shifted from caring, to profiting. While their roots in charitable altruism remain a marketing tool, in truth most hospitals operate more like extractive industries. Administrators far from the suffering at the bedside, not trained to heal, or sworn to Hippocratic oaths, make most “healthcare” decisions today asking different questions: What revenue streams are available? How can we maximize profit? Today’s hospital administrators are trained and rewarded for thinking this way, but profiteering while patients go without care and care becomes unaffordable endangers patients, undermines public health, and consumes too great a share of economic resources families and communities need for other essentials.
The best example of profit over patients here in Bozeman is the fact that since 2010, data collected in Community Health Needs Assessments has identified mental health and substance use disorders as the top health care needs in our community, impacting at least 30% of residents. So while Bozeman Health has spent over $95 million on remodeling and expansion, they continue to refuse to provide medically essential inpatient psychiatric care. While Bozeman Health has added “integrative behavioral health” to outpatient care and 2 ER beds for psychiatric care, without inpatient psychiatric crisis care, patients suffering a psychiatric crisis will need care Gallatin County does not have. So, in the midst of a health care crisis, these patients are sent elsewhere, away from family and support networks, inflicting risks and costs that amplify suffering, trauma and stigma. “You aren’t welcome here” is the message patients and their families feel.
It’s time to ask questions. Why does Bozeman Health not recognize the health benefits of providing inpatient psychiatric care to so many in need here in Gallatin County? Hospitals in Helena, Kalispell, Glendive, Lewistown, Billings, Great Falls, and Missoula all provide inpatient psychiatric care, and operate in the black. Why won’t Bozeman Health?
Gallatin County is Montana’s third most populous county, rich and growing. Is it fair to ask other communities to care for the patients Bozeman Health chooses not to? The Nov. 21 Chronicle
reported that Bozeman Health had a total of 37 spare beds set aside for COVID. Post-COVID, how could these beds be used to provide inpatient psychiatric care for children and adults in our
community?
Is it discrimination to deny inpatient care to those suffering a psychiatric crisis? How many Gallatin County residents are being “committed involuntarily” due to a failure to receive effective local psychiatric medical care? What are the cumulative costs to patients, families, tax-payers, city, county and state governments, law enforcement and other communities of refusing to provide inpatient psychiatric crisis care?
Per the latest available Form 990 in 2019 Bozeman Health’s CEO John Hill was paid $889,171. Meanwhile, in 2019 the highest paid federal government employee, Dr Fauci, was paid $417,608. Gov. Gianforte’s salary is $174,000. Is it possible to find qualified, committed people to work for less, and other savings for patient care?
Hospitals are as necessary as fire departments and police departments. As “charitable” tax exempt institutions on which lives depend, it is our right and duty to hold them accountable.
We must speak up if we are able, for the sake of those who can’t. What can you do? Contact Bozeman Health board members, ask them to abide by open meeting laws, meet with local physicians and community members to hear their concerns, and to make beds available for inpatient psychiatric care.
Per Bozeman Health’s website: “The assets of Bozeman Deaconess Health Services corporation are ‘held in trust’ by the Yellowstone Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) for the purposes of providing healthcare and related services to the people of Bozeman and Southcentral Montana.”
If you are a member of UMC and care about this issue, please contact UMC leadership. Write this paper about experiences you have to improve care locally. Please, ask our city and county
commissioners to hold our wealthy community hospital accountable for psychiatric care and Montana open meeting laws.
In Montana the Attorney General’s Office is charged with oversight of nonprofit hospitals, however their last analysis was done on 2010 data. Ask Attorney General Austin Knudsen to resume oversight. Email or call contactocp@mt.gov, 444-4500 or 444-2026.
Jo Anne Troxel, Roxanne Klingensmith, Jessie Close, Glenn Close and Beth Sirr are residents of in Bozeman who are concerned about the lack of inpatient mental health care.
Bozeman Daily Chronicle Guest Editorial 3/10/21