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Mesquite Holds Off On Settlement With Mesa View Hospital

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

The Mesquite City Council voted to proceed with an ongoing lawsuit against Mesa View Regional Hospital (MVRH) in a vote held during a meeting on Tuesday, April 9.
The vote occurred despite a 3-2 majority of council members which appeared to be in support of settling the suit earlier in the meeting.

But while holding off on the proposed settlement, the final motion did instruct the city attorney to negotiate a similar settlement as soon as possible.

The lawsuit arose last fall from the closure of the labor and delivery unit at MVRH on October 1, 2018. The City claimed that the closure violated a 2002 development agreement with the hospital requiring that MVRH provide an obstetrics unit to the community.

But the hospital insisted that the obstetrics unit was no longer viable in the community. In September, hospital officals cited statistics showing the number of births performed at the MVRH had plunged by 74 percent in recent years. In 2008, the hospital performed 236 deliveries. But by 2017, only 63 deliveries were taking place there.

In addition to the lawsuit, the City has also pursued a bill draft at this year’s session of the Nevada State Legislature. Senate Bill 63 would release restrictions on the approval of competing health care providers in rural communities. The City has presented the bill in hopes of luring another provider into the community to offer labor and delivery care.

The settlement brought before the city council last week proposed that the lawsuit be dropped, as well as the City’s agreement to abandon its efforts in passing Senate Bill 63.

The settlement would allow the mayor to nominate a city council member to serve as a voting member on the MVRH board. The hospital would also be required to provide a semi-annual progress report to the public.

This settlement had reportedly been drafted from a series of meetings between the mayor, certain members of the city council and hospital CEO, Ned Hill.

Council members George Gault, Annie Black and Sandra Ramaker; all of whom were newly elected last November; were those involved in the negotiations with Hill. The meetings were reportedly done either individually with Hill, or in small groups of two at a time, in order to avoid violations of Open Meeting Law.

The other two council members: George Rapson and Brian Wursten, had refused requests to discuss the matter, or to meet with Hill, insisting that it was the City Attorney’s role to negotiate any settlement.

During the initial council comments, Gault said that he saw little point in pursuing the lawsuit further. He pointed out that the development agreement with MVRH was set to expire in 2022 anyway, which is likely before the lawsuit would be concluded. In addition, the city is expected to reach a population of 25,000 people in the next two years, Gault said. At this point, it would pass a threshhold where Senate Bill 63 would not longer apply, he added.

“So I don’t see any benefit of pursuing a lawsuit,” Gault said. “I think we have an ideal opportunity at this point to begin to plan and work with the hospital and think about what it should become and what services it should offer to meet our ongoing needs.”
Ramaker agreed. “Look, the loss of labor and delivery was a heartbreaker for me, too” she said. “But it was simply a matter of dollars and cents. Pushing through this lawsuit isn’t going to bring it back. I feel it is important that this goes away and we move forward.”

“We are looking in the rear view mirror on this,” Black added in her comment. “We should be looking forward. How can we help the health care situation now? We only win if we fix the problem from right now. I’d like to move on and make it better.”

But the more senior city council members, Wursten and Rapson, stood firm on the position that the lawsuit should proceed. They said it was about more than just the obstetrics unit being returned. Rather they were focused on the integrity of City contracts.

“This lawsuit is a result of a breach of contract,” Rapson said. “We have an obligation to enforce our contracts. We have development agreements with all kinds of entities. We can’t just pick and choose which we will enforce and which we will just blow off.”
Wursten explained that the lawsuit had progressed to a point where key information into the matter was about to be made public. “We are just entering the discovery phase where everything comes to light,” Wursten said. “If we drop it now, we get nothing out of it as a city. I see no issue of moving forward with discovery. If after that, it comes out that everything said by the hospital is correct, I will jump on board with dropping the suit.”

The meeting was opened to public comment which went on for around two hours. Comments seemed to be evenly divided back and forth on the idea of settling the lawsuit of not.

A key turning point in the conversation came during a public comment by Mesquite resident Steve Lisk. A private attorney by trade, Lisk explained that he had made a formal request from the city for all recent email communication between city council members and Hill. He claimed that he had found evidence that Open Meeting Law violations had occurred in those communications.

“Because of this, I am filing a complaint with the State Attorney General alleging a violation of Open Meeting Law,” Lisk said. “The council has now been put on notice of possible violations and I have laid out the evidence as to how the law was violated.”

Lisk requested that the council delay the vote on the settlement agreement until after an investigation could take place.

Shortly after that, at the conclusion of public comment, the council and mayor withdrew into a brief closed door executive session with City Attorney Bob Sweetin. Upon their return, it was evident that the dynamics had changed.

“I’m feeling pretty discouraged to be honest,” said Black upon the council’s return. “I went into these negotiations trying to do something good. I don’t think everything needs to go to court. I feel like we can come to the table and address a lot of problems.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the mentality of a lot of people around here.”
“You think that you can try to remedy a situation out of court and all of a sudden you are being investigated by the Attorney General because that is ‘suspicious’,” Black added. “That just says something about our City. If that is suspicious, then it is pretty sad.”

Gault said he agreed with what Black had said. “We entered into this in good faith trying to resolve an impasse and make a good negotiation that could be brought back to the council,” Gault said. “We were aware of the Open Meeting Law and we made real efforts to stay clear of that conflict. I guess time will tell if we were successful with that.”
Gault made a motion to direct staff to stay the course on both the lawsuit and Senate Bill 63.

“However, I would like to direct our legal counsel to meet with the Mesa View attorneys as soon as possible and resolve the issue based on the agreement that was up for discussion tonight,” Gault added in his motion.

The motion was passed with a unanimous vote of the council.

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