Note: this editorial was published in the July 17, 2020 edition of the Toledo Blade.
The collective sigh of relief you just heard in Toledo came after the University of Toledo announced it is no longer entertaining proposals to sell, lease, or outsource the management of the University of Toledo Medical Center.
The decision followed four months of shock, anger, and citizen action, which began when university officials announced that the former Medical College of Ohio hospital was running a $25 million deficit, which forced UT to consider drastic options.
What the university didn’t say was that it had caused the deficit.
The university’s board and acting president deserve credit for changing their minds and doing the right thing.
Thanks to the efforts of the Save UTMC Coalition and a few local politicians, federal state and local (Rep. Marcy Kaptur and former Mayor Carty Finkbeiner, in particular, deserve props), the university now says it will instead focus its efforts on stabilizing UTMC’s finances and preserving a hospital in South Toledo.
Cheers all around, but this is just the first step in saving UTMC. Whether the hospital can survive long term depends on what happens next.
First, the audit that hospital-sale critics have been demanding must go forward, regardless of Thursday’s announcement. The five-year-old affiliation agreement with ProMedica and its impact on UTMC’s operations requires thorough scrutiny to understand how the hospital’s finances got to be as bad as they are now.
Without such an audit, how will UT officials have the information they need to find a way to make it profitable in the future?
Second, the hospital’s staffing, which has been depleted in recent years, must be replenished. The specialty services that have been moved to ProMedica Toledo Hospital must be restored, and UT officials should consider upgrading the trauma center to a level one facility.
How does the hospital find a way forward without adequate staff and other resources?
Finally, UTMC must have its own board, separate from the University of Toledo board of trustees. It would be advisory, not governing, like the Wexner Medical Center affiliated with the Ohio State University. UTMC needs a board that understands medicine and science and the economies of modern hospitals. Some entity must exist that protects UTMC and actually advocates for the institution.
It does not exist now.
So, a battle is won. But the effort to save and enhance the medical college and its teaching hospital has just begun.