The Murray-Calloway County Hospital board has approved a bid from Baptist Health to purchase two service lines at the hospital – its adult day care and home health nursing services.
The $1 million bid was approved by the board at a specially-called meeting last Friday.
Calloway County Judge-Executive Larry Elkins said he cast the lone dissenting vote against the bid because he wanted the hospital to retain control of the adult day care service.
“Although it wasn’t profitable, I felt like it was manageable and it was a service line that our hospital, as a public hospital, should have continued,” Elkins said.
Hospital CEO Jerry Penner said the move was necessary because the services were losing too much money.
“The losses had been anywhere between $450 and $950 thousand dollars for that product line,” Penner said. “At some point, with the Affordable Care Act and the tremendous strain that we have on hospital operations, you just can’t be all things to all people.”
Penner said 40 adult day care and home health employees will be terminated from the hospital, but they will, in all likelihood, be retained by Baptist Health. He said when exploring the sale, MCCH’s board stressed the importance of rehiring the services' employees in its request for proposal.
The hospital also recently contracted out its custodial and housekeeping work. Penner said those employees now work for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and received a 2 percent raise.