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Show c J Keep county hospital ! Dear Mr. Wallis: : According to last week's article about the sale of the Uintah County Hospital to H.C.A. (Hospital Corporation of i America), we, the people of Uintah ' County, have found our Savior. I realize the County Commissioners are anxious to get rid of a dead horse. Before H.C.A. came to help manage the : hospital we were over a million dollars : in the red. With their held in the last 18 months we are now 1.2 million dollars in the red. The county paid this : business managment $167,000 for this .: kind of help. : If the County gets rid of our County . Hospital, H.C.A. thinks they can make ; this a money making business. I wonder how they can make money for . H.C.A. where they couldn't help us. H.C.A. paid higher dividends to their : stockholders than A.T & T. To pay . dividends, one must make money. The ; only way H.C.A. can make money is to raise the price of their services. It is going to be interesting to watch how services to the emergency room, lab, x-rays, x-rays, therapy, and ambulance services will cost compared to what they do now. When H.C.A. makes money, who pays for it?.. - Are the taxpayers aware that when this marvelous organization takes over, their policy in the emergency room requires a remittance of $50 or they do not administer services to you? No money, no service unless you would die. They have the right to turn you away. H.C.A. offers specialists. Will it be like Price, Utah, where they brought in Canadian doctors? H.C.A likes H.C.A employees. They bring in their own people. I am concerned for the employees em-ployees of our County Hospital. Valley West Hospital has one department head left after two years at their hospital. H.C.A. offered 3.5 million dollars even though the hospital cost 4 million and we owned the property. Is this worth the price? The Commissioners think it is all they can get. CHARTHAM couldn't even make a competitive bid because H.C.A. management wouldn't release the necessary information even after the Commissioners told them to. CHARTHAM would like to bid for the hospital and the old hospital building. They wanted to renovate the old hospital into a nursing home and run both facilities. H.C.A. does not want any part of the nursing home and doesn't want it next to their hospital. If the old hospital was good enough to build the kitchen in, why wouldn't it be wise to remodel it into a nursing facility? We own the land, it's cheaper than buying new land, a new building, . and also ambulance service between the two facilities. By remodeling we could go down the hall to the new hospital when necessary. The kitchen : could easily serve both facilities. ; H.C.A will have their own ambulance ; service. How much will it cost the people of Uintah County? Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Com-pany just released a report that H.C. A's hospital charges are among the highest , in the state second only to Moab's hospital that's run by Advanced Health , Systems. When we voted for the bond on our : hospital we were promised the old j hospital would be converted into a I nursing home. Now, if the sale goes through, we will lose our hospital and our land to a profit making organization. We also will not receive what was promised to us. We will not only lose our land, hospital building and prospective nursing home, but we also : will not be released from our bond. : Thirty-six bed hospitals can operate j without subsidy under proper I management. Emmet, Idaho has a i hospital that seems to manage and has ; for years. : It is time we, the concerned citizens : of Uintah County stand up and be i counted. We need to keep "our" ; hospital "ours." It is a hospital we can all be proud of. Don't let them turn our people away! I care about us! JOANN J. HARDY |