From WRIL -
Today in bankruptcy court tensions were high as to the fate of the former Pineville Community Hospital. While a major hurdle of Grant White no longer being a part of the day-to-day operations and no contact with the hospital was cleared, White still owns assets in the facility and has control over the certificate of public need.
At one point during the proceedings lawyers for Grant White made the claim that employees have been paid contrary to the fact that regular payroll has not been met for seven weeks. Over the weekend CEO Kevin Couch was able to acquire funds for cashier's checks to pay a crew to cover the weekend's shifts when dozens were furloughed, but no other employees were paid.
Much is still up in the air as to a resolution to on going management of the hospital. What we do know is that the lawyers for both parties involved have roughly 24 hours to agree on a third party to oversee the operation and financial responsibility of the hospital. If neither side can agree, it will be up to the judge to do so.
As far as the agreement between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, Saturday is the deadline for the issues to be resolved to their satisfaction after a ten day stay of termination of that agreement. We do know they are monitoring the situation closely.
We have found out that the hospital is severely behind on utility bills which may complicate the situation if non-payment causes termination of services.
We have also been told that at least one lawyer for Grant White has claimed that we along with other media have put out misinformation regarding the hospital and the proceedings involving the facility. For the record, we ceased attempting to contact the hospital shortly after our live interview with Grant White when we never heard back from anyone willing to talk to us and that employees were openly threatened with termination if they spoke to us.
As in the past, if anyone associated with the hospital that does have the authority to speak with us would be willing to sit down for an interview or go on record in regard to the actual facts, we welcome them.
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