COLUMBIA, Tenn. — Today, Maury Regional Health announced the launch of the Coalition for Responsible Health Care – a community organization created to serve as a collective voice for health care in opposition to the HCA TriStar certificate of need application to build a second hospital in Maury County.
“High-quality, responsible health care is a foundational need of our community; however, it must be delivered in a responsible manner to ensure that our citizens do not incur high charges and are not needlessly transferred to Nashville hospitals,” said Maury Regional Health CEO Martin Chaney, MD. “While on the surface HCA TriStar’s proposed hospital may sound appealing, the reality is that it will not offer the level of specialty care currently available at Maury Regional Health and Williamson Health, and it will only serve to exacerbate the national shortage of physicians, nurses and other health care providers.”
According to Dr. Chaney, the Coalition for Responsible Health Care was formed to provide a voice for health care providers and community members across the region who want to ensure that patients remain the top priority, without regard to shareholder benefits.
“As a long-time physician in Maury County, I am deeply concerned that a second hospital in Maury County will increase costs for patients, worsen local health care recruiting and staffing issues and, ultimately, impact patient safety for the residents here in Maury County,” said Mark Seago, MD, a specialist in internal medicine and pediatrics.
As a patient advocate organization, the Coalition for Responsible Health Care is designed to oppose unnecessary or potentially detrimental health care and opposes the proposed HCA TriStar facility for several key reasons. The Coalition for Responsible Health Care believes it will:
- Increase costs for patients
- Exacerbate health care staffing shortages
- Duplicate certain services, while not offering advanced specialty care
- Shift the focus away from prevention and wellness to more costly episodes of care, such as ER visits, procedures and hospitalizations
Today, the Coalition for Responsible Health Care launched a new website, CoalitionForResponsibleHealthCare.com, to provide crucial information about the proposed HCA TriStar hospital to Maury County and Middle Tennessee residents.
“We are here to take care of the people of this region,” said Dr. Chaney. “For more than 70 years, we have succeeded in that mission, and with our community’s support, we’ll be able to continue our mission for decades to come. Among our most recent advancements are a $1.9 million improvement to the cardiac catheterization labs in our Heart Center and the addition of a fourth da Vinci robotic-assisted surgical system. Not only do we offer more advanced care, but our charges are also much lower than for-profit hospitals. All hospitals are not equal, so we urge our community to seek more information, which is available at CoalitionforResponsibleHealthCare.com.”
There are several ways people can voice their opposition to the proposed HCA TriStar project:
- Write a letter opposing a second hospital in Maury County and send it to the Tennessee Health Facilities Commission, c/o Certificate of Need, 502 Deaderick Street, Andrew Jackson Building, 9th Floor, Nashville, TN 37243.
- Go to CoalitionforResponsibleHealthCare.com and complete the form to show your support.
The Coalition for Responsible Health Care is encouraging people to act quickly as the Tennessee Health Facilities Commission will vote on the proposal on June 26, 2024.
“Time is of the essence,” said Deborah Lumpkins, chief nursing officer and chief operating officer at Maury Regional Health. “As a career nurse and long-time resident of Maury County, I cannot stress enough how important it is for our community to come together and support responsible, locally managed health care.”
About Coalition for Responsible Health Care
The Coalition for Responsible Health Care serves as a collective voice for local health care providers and community members who understand that health care development must take place in a responsible manner or it will only serve to increase costs for our patients, disrupt the continuum of care and exacerbate the nationwide shortage of providers, resulting in physician- and nurse-to-patient ratios that are detrimental to clinical quality and patient safety.