Sturgis Hospital Interim CEO Jeremy Gump provided Sturgis City Commissioners with an update Wednesday regarding the hospital’s financial status. In a report to commissioners earlier this month, Gump stated the hospital was in danger of being depleted of funds by the end of June. Now there is no “drop dead” date for the hospital’s closure thanks to a deposit of funds which will allow the facility to continue to operate — at least for a few more weeks.

Gump told commissioners the hospital had been “very fortunate” with recent financial developments. “Even in a situation where we owe people money, there’s areas where we’re owed money,” he said. “Thankfully, some funds have come in and enabled us to continue operating.”

Gump called the current situation with the hospital “tenuous day-to-day” and told commissioners, “Don’t relax. I know you all have very important decisions to make and analysis to do. I would ask — not in my capacity with the hospital, just somebody who lives in the market area— that you still operate under the assumption that it may close tomorrow for whatever reason. That’s not going to happen, but I think that’s the urgency with which we need to act.”

During this period, Gump said the hospital has had meetings with two more interested purchasing parties. “We spoke to you previously about two other buyers, and at this time we’ve added a third and a fourth. The third organization is going to give us a response on Friday at 10:30 in the morning of either ‘it’s not going to work,’ or ‘here’s a proposal.’ We are anxiously awaiting that,” he said. 

Gump described the fourth organization he met with earlier that day as “ancillary” to the other three. “The fourth one we met with today left interested, but a Rural Emergency Hospital was completely different than their business model. You could equate it with the discussions we have here with our friends in the community who want to know why we don’t have a Red Lobster or Morton’s Steakhouse or something.” Gump said sometimes these interested parties don’t understand Sturgis residents travel at least 20 miles to go to dinner, or take their children to school. “We have a tremendous market,” Gump said. “We have over 120,000 people who live within 20 miles, and sometimes those people would rather come here than go to South Bend, Battle Creek, or Kalamazoo.”

Vice Mayor Aaron Miller echoed these statements and said he hoped Gump and his staff were impressing on interested parties all the many things going on in the community. “For instance,” he said, “the discussion about pediatric care in this community. We need something local for pediatric care. I appreciate how much you bring up medical tourism because decisions are made by people in the market area who are voting with their feet.”

Commissioner Brandon Kinsey asked Gump, “Based on some of the income that came in, can you give an educated guess about how long that’ll cover your payroll?” Gump said from an operating standpoint, and with no surprises, he believed the hospital could continue to operate for a few more weeks. “For payroll purposes, we just paid last Friday and we run payroll on Wednesdays. July 5 we will run a payroll, but I think whether or not we run a payroll on July 19 is the issue.”

Commissioner Frank Perez acknowledged the difficult situation Gump and the rest of the Sturgis Hospital board have been navigating but asked if the staff was aware of the hospital’s precarious position. “I took some calls from the last time you did a presentation here from hospital employees not knowing or hearing about what you presented to the commission and they heard it on the radio or read it in the paper. I’m a fan of government not interfering with private business, but is there communication going on with staff? Are they aware of what’s going on?”

Gump said Chief Operating Officer Bobby Morin held a town hall after the Sturgis city commission meeting on June 15 where Gump first made the announcement regarding the facility’s financial crisis. He called it an “unfortunate series of events” and said it was “not ideal” when employees heard the news first elsewhere. “Something I’ve commented on for the last five years is that anything we do here we want to do as humanely as possible as it relates to the employees, and that was not the case two weeks ago,” Gump said.

Beca Welty is a staff writer and columnist for Watershed Voice.