A group of roughly 20 physicians from Greenville (S.C.) Health System voiced their concern during a council meeting Tuesday evening regarding two bills in the state legislature that call for the sale of the seven-hospital system, WYFF News 4 reports.
State lawmakers introduced one bill into the South Carolina House of Representatives Feb. 15 and one in the state Senate, both advocating for the sale of the health system to the highest bidder.
The eight members of the Greenville County Legislative Delegation who proposed the bill in the state House wrote in an op-ed for the Greenville News last week they believe selling the health system is in the best interest of the community because public trust in GHS was shaken when the health system "unilaterally restructured and leased our publicly-owned, multibillion dollar asset without the legislative delegation's input or consent as the law requires."
However, GHS is currently in the midst of merging with Columbia, S.C.-based Palmetto Health. Spence Taylor, MD, president of GHS under the merged organization, said the potential sale of GHS would effectively prevent the merger from occuring.
"What's best for Greenville and patient care is for us to merge with Palmetto Health in Columbia," Dr. Taylor told WYFF News 4. "If we don't get bigger, we will be gobbled up. If we're gobbled up by a bigger conglomerate from a different city, we'll lose local control of healthcare."
"The highest bidder could be a for-profit health system, and the for-profit systems don't care about the mission, poor people, education, or the USC School of Medicine, or trauma unit. They care about making money," he added.
Physicians who spoke during the meeting Feb. 20 reportedly expressed concern about their patients' level of care and whether they could potentially lose their jobs if the health system is sold, according to the report.
"I don't want my employees worried about their jobs. I want them to worry about taking care of the people that come to the Greenville Health System, our families in the hospital right now," Dr. Taylor told the news outlet.
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