Dougherty Commission chairman: Lee officials haven’t made hospital info public

ALBANY — Dougherty County Commission Chairman Chris Cohilas told Lee County officials in a letter dated Aug. 29 that he “respectfully disagrees” with Lee officials’ contention that information about the certificate of need application submitted in regards to construction of a 60-bed hospital in Lee County has been made readily available to the public.

Cohilas said in a letter to Lee Co-Manager Christi Dockery that a statement from Lee officials indicating “information regarding the CON application was provided through a website issued in The Albany Herald, as well as Lee County’s official website, is incorrect.”

Cohilas wrote in the letter: “What has been recently produced to Dougherty County in response to an Open Records request is far more and substantially different than what has been provided to the public.”

Cohilas attached a copy of the publicly available CON information and wrote, “I believe you will find it to be substantially different than what was filed with the State Department of Community Health.”

Cohilas, who sent a copy of the letter to The Herald in response to an Open Records request, said Friday Dougherty County officials had received roughly 1,000 pages of documents that included hospital developer LCMC OPCO’s CON application.

“The document made available to the public (by Lee officials) appears to be a copy of a portion of an early version of the CON application,” Cohilas said. “It doesn’t contain information related to bond issuance, repayment or any of the other Department of Community Health standards on which that agency will base its (CON) decision.

“And, I believe, the information Lee officials have made available is from an application that was deemed incomplete (by DCH).”

Asked if criticism of the Dougherty commission’s vote Monday to authorize a $35,000 study of the proposed Lee hospital’s impact on Dougherty County, Albany hospital Phoebe Putney Memorial and health care delivery in Southwest Georgia had become an issue of concern, Cohilas initially said he “would not respond to social media attacks until someone goes on the record and spells out clearly their concerns.”

He then defended the action and the firm selected by Dougherty Attorney Spencer Lee to conduct the impact study, KBP Law of Atlanta.

“If you’ll recall, that’s one of the primary reasons we extended an offer to Lee County officials (to scrutinize and fund the study) so that we could analyze the independently gathered data jointly,” Cohilas said. “Unfortunately, they chose not to participate. But from the multiple sources in Dougherty County who’ve indicated to me their concern about the negative impact of this hospital on the county, Dougherty citizens have every right to expect this information be made public in its entirety.

“The information we sought from Lee County that they indicated they did not have is information based on DCH standards that are instrumental in the CON process. That’s the information Dougherty and Lee County citizens who’ve contacted me have asked questions about. Lee County has the right to make whatever information it deems appropriate available to its citizens, but Dougherty County has the right to seek as much information as possible and make that information available to its citizens.”