The Cook County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Monday to approve the final draft of a hospital funding agreement with the Tift County Hospital Authority.
The agreement calls for the County to make $5 million in payments over 30 years to the Hospital Authority in consideration of a new hospital and related facilities, a nursing home, and a rural health clinic. The Georgia Forestry Commission property on M.J. Taylor Road (near I-75 Exit 37) is being considered as the site for the new Cook Medical Center hospital facility.
County Administrator Faye Hughes recommended that the Board approve the final draft of the agreement, which involved some changes as requested by the Commissioners. Commissioner Audie Rowe made a motion in favor, seconded by Commissioner Lin Parrish. All voted in favor. County Attorney Daniel Connell had reviewed the document.
According to the intergovernmental contract, to improve medical care in the City of Adel and Cook County, the Hospital Authority proposes to plan, develop, and construct a new hospital consisting of at least eight acute care beds, a 12-bed geri-psychiatric unit (currently the Sylvia Barr Center at the existing hospital), a six-bed pre- and post-care unit, an ambulatory surgical center, and ancillary hospital services; 95 long-term care beds; and a rural health clinic that is open seven days a week with hours of operation depending upon demand. The new facilities will be located on an approximately 45.17-acre site off I-75.
The contract states that the County is entering into the contract “to provide financial support to the Authority for the planning, development, construction, equipping, and operation of the new facilities and to cause quality medical care to remain in the County to be available for its indigent sick and its poor.”
The contract calls for the Authority to seek all required Certificates of Need (CONs) for the project. According to the contract, the Authority will schedule a utilization review every 90 days to monitor the need for and feasibility of a 24-hour emergency treatment center. The Authority shall operate the clinic seven days per week based upon demand.
In the event the Authority decides to sell or cease the operations of the new facilities, it shall provide the County three months notice. Additionally, if the Authority ceases operations of the new facilities, within five years from the issuance of the Certificate of Occupancy for the new facilities, the Authority shall repay the County a sum equal to the payments provided by the County to the Authority. If the hospital were to close after five years, the County’s payments to the Hospital Authority would cease.
The County shall pay to the Authority, upon issuance of the Certificate of Occupancy for the new facilities, and on the first day of each subsequent month, 360 equal monthly installments that, when discounted by a discount rate equal to the higher of 3.376 percent or the interest rate of any USDA loan obtained by the Authority for the hospital, equal the Net Contribution. “Net Contribution” means $5 million.
The Adel City Council voted Monday night to authorize Mayor Buddy Duke to execute a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Tift County Hospital Authority for the new hospital project.
The agreement commits the City to pay up to $4 million over 30 years for the new hospital project. The MOU contains “a clawback provision” in which if the hospital were to close before five years, the City would be reimbursed for its payments; if the hospital were to close after five years, the City’s payments to the Hospital Authority would cease.
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