University Hospital – Public or Private? UofL still wants to be the Judge!
Thanksgiving Day delivered a gift to the Citizens of Louisville in the form of a report by the Courier-Journal’s Andrew Wolfson that Judge Martin McDonald has rejected the hospital’s claim that it is a private corporation. The judge echoed my opinions and those of others that the University has “spent a lot of time trying to dream up legal fictions to maintain control” of the hospital. “Maintaining control” means that the University and its hospital have been able to hide the financial and other performance information that lie behind its claim to be in dire financial straits and justifying its recent handover to an outside private corporation. Despite at least three recent external and highly critical management audits of the hospital and its indigent care operations, the University has not had to provide a financial audit to justify the massive amounts of money it has funneled away from its Hospital’s bottom line.
Only last week, the Commonwealth signed off on a highly troublesome set of documents that transfers control of most of the clinical operations of the University and much of its academic and financial independence to KentuckyOne Health, part of a nationwide Catholic health and hospital system. In my opinion, the Commonwealth lost an important opportunity to settle this matter once and for all before its virtual endorsement of the University’s warrantee that UofL had the “free and clear ability and authority” to enter such a comprehensive reorganization of its governance structure. Indeed, the Academic Affiliation Agreement to which they Commonwealth was a signatory, appears to further immunize the University and its new partner from having to disclose “all information that relates to or is used in connection with the business and the affairs” of the new partnership.
No new information that was the subject of the lawsuit by the Courier-Journal, WHAS-TV, and the ACLU of Kentucky has yet been released. I rather suspect that the University will appeal Judge McDonald’s decision and that this case will linger on for a long time to come. In the meantime, the Commonwealth has given the University the operational right to define its own obligation to the Open-Records Law and public accountability at a time when the stability of the healthcare system of Louisville is in jeopardy. Continue reading “Judge Rules University of Louisville Hospital Subject to Open-Records Law.”
Traffic has indeed been a mess at the site of the new Robley Rex VA Hospital building site for the last few months as shown by videos on YouTube and in other ways. Since the whole intersection of the Waterson Expressway with Routes 42 and 22 has been under construction, this should have been no surprise. Now that things have settled down, a fairer assessment can be attempted. For those who have not driven through the area recently, these photos taken mid-day on Monday, November 19 will show the new configuration. Click through the images for larger sizes, or for maximum size, download. Continue reading “New Traffic Patterns at Brownsboro VA Site Open.”