{"id":1554,"date":"2011-09-02T09:12:27","date_gmt":"2011-09-02T13:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/sgmc-absorbs-smith-northview-hospital.html"},"modified":"2011-09-02T09:12:27","modified_gmt":"2011-09-02T13:12:27","slug":"sgmc-absorbs-smith-northview-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/sgmc-absorbs-smith-northview-hospital.html","title":{"rendered":"SGMC absorbs Smith Northview Hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"What could that $55 million or that $100 million have been used for\nthat would have improved medical care around here?\n

\nKay Harris wrote for the VDT yesterday,\n\nSGMC acquisition of Smith Northview official<\/a>:\n

\n\n<\/a>\nBeginning today, Smith Northview is an official campus of South Georgia\nMedical Center.\n

\nOfficials from the Hospital Authority of Valdosta-Lowndes County and\nAmeris Health Systems gathered Wednesday at SGMC to sign the paperwork\ntogether to finalize the sale.\n

\nSGMC purchased Smith Northview for $55 million, with no assumption of\ndebt. Hospital Authority Attorney Walter H. New said the purchase was\nfinanced through an 18-month bridge loan, which is anticipated to be paid\nin full in December when SGMC is expected to have a $100 million bond\nissue to pay for current and future projects on the main hospital campus.\n

\nInterim CEO for Smith Northview, Shamb Purohit, said, \u201cThis is a\nwonderful moment and we need to celebrate it.\u201d\n<\/blockquote>\nYeah, well, he’s paid to say that.\nI say it’s a sad day.\nFirst Smith Hospital moved from Hahira\n\n\nto Valdosta,\nand now it’s being absorbed by the borg, er, I mean SGMC.\nI’m sure SGMC is a fine hospital (I’ve been to see enough people in it).\nBut I liked going to a small independent hospital when I drilled a hole\nthrough my finger or some such.\n

\nWhodunit?\n

\n\n<\/a>\nThe dozens of documents, all in duplicate, took more than an hour to be\nsigned by all of the responsible parties, including Authority Chairman\nBill Cowart, Finance Chairman Johnny Langdale, Ameris CEO Sam Lewis, and\nAmeris COO Robert Bauer, along with the respective attorneys. Members\nof the Hospital Authority were on hand to witness the event, as the\ntransaction is thought to be the single largest purchase of its kind in\nthe history of Lowndes County.\n<\/blockquote>\nWhy did they do it?\n
\nWhen the Hospital Authority first approached Lewis, he said they were\nreluctant to sell Smith Northview, but in consideration of the many\nchanges coming in the national health care plan, \u201cWe decided it was\nin all of our best interests.\n<\/blockquote>\nSure, it’s somebody else’s fault.\nI wonder who profits by this deal.\n

\nAnd remember is was supposed to oversee the hospitals:\nthe Hospital Authority<\/a>,\nwhose only web pages are at SGMC.\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What could that $55 million or that $100 million have been used for that would have improved medical care around here? Kay Harris wrote for the VDT yesterday, SGMC acquisition of Smith Northview official: Beginning today, Smith Northview is an official campus of South Georgia Medical Center. Officials from the Hospital Authority of Valdosta-Lowndes County […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14,602,41,133,914],"tags":[8718,43,3858,805,139,3365,138,8700,2487,8809],"class_list":["post-1554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-hahira","category-health-care","category-vdt","category-vlcha","tag-health-care","tag-hospital","tag-medical","tag-money","tag-sgmc","tag-smith-northview-hospital","tag-south-georgia-medical-center","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-hospital-authority","tag-vlcha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-p4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}