Dougherty denied restraining order on Lee hospital

ATLANTA — Lee County Commission Vice Chairman Billy Mathis told The Albany Herald Tuesday that the temporary restraining order Dougherty County had requested to stop work on the proposed Lee County Medical Center was denied by a Fulton County Superior Court judge.

“We are very pleased with the outcome of today’s hearing,” Mathis said immediately following the decision. “We have great respect for the (Georgia) Department of Community Health and the regulators in our state. As we’ve said all along, the (temporary restraining order) was a senseless distraction, and it’s clear that the state agrees.

“We continue to be grateful for all of the community support, and we are excited to break ground for Lee County Medical Center in the coming months.”

The injunction, filed April 25, asked the Fulton County court to order Lee County to halt all construction work on the planned site for the 60-bed facility until the court rules on a lawsuit filed on behalf of the county on April 18. Dougherty asked for an expedited decision of the temporary restraining order petition.

Robert Rozier, an attorney with the Atlanta BakerHostetler firm, who is representing Dougherty County, filed suit against the Department of Community Health, DCH Commissioner Frank Berry and Executive Director of Heath Planning Rachel King on April 18 asking for declaratory judgment and a writ of mandamus that a “DCH regulation that lacks any authority and seeks mandamus to compel the commissioner to enforce the certificate of need laws as enacted by the General Assembly.”

The DCH approved Lee County’s certificate of need on Nov. 15, 2017. Dougherty County has made the argument that DCH did not properly apply the law when approving the CON for the proposed $123 million hospital, and that filing the suit was part of a process of Dougherty exhausting all legal remedies in order for the county’s voice to be heard.

Rozier could not be reached by The Herald for comment on Tuesday concerning the out come of the hearing.

The Georgia Certificate of Need Appeal Panel dismissed the appeals Dougherty County officials and the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals had requested to move their opposition forward on the grounds that the complainants did not have the standing to oppose the CON granted for the Lee hospital. Dougherty and GACH responded by filing lawsuits.

GACH has dropped its lawsuit. The only opposing entity to the CON deemed to have standing was Crisp Regional Hospital, which dropped its appeal last month.

DHG Healthcare was brought in to calculate what the impact of the Lee hospital might be for Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital. The firm presented its findings to Phoebe’s Board of Directors in May of last year, and said it had determined that, by the third year of the Lee hospital operating, there will be an annual revenue loss of $30.1 million for inpatient care at Phoebe.

A short time later, the BakerHostetler firm completed for the Dougherty County Commission an impact study of a proposed Lee County hospital on Dougherty County, Phoebe and health care delivery in southwest Georgia. The study found that the planned medical center would significantly and adversely impact the region’s health care.

In a 46-page report summarized for the commission in October by County Attorney Spencer Lee, the law firm said, “LCMC’s (Lee County Medical Center) project will cannibalize the insured patients already served by existing hospitals and needed to support their provision of care to the financially needy.”

The report also suggested that the certificate of need application submitted for the Lee hospital indicates a desire not to serve less affluent patients, such as those covered by Medicaid.

Officials in Lee County have said that the plan is to break ground on the hospital in late summer. If that plan holds, the 15-18-month construction window would result in the facility opening in early 2020.