Welcome to New Hospital Management Team!

I would like to personally welcome Mr. Bob Blake, the new interim CEO of the R.J. Reynolds Patrick County Memorial Hosptial to Patrick County. Blake is part of a team of four new management officials who have begun the task of correcting the problems that have long plagued our hospital. The quartet has combined experience of 100 years in the health care industry.

Mr. Blake visited the Stuart Rotary Club regular meeting Monday evening to introduce himself and to inform the public about plans that are now underway to restore the hospital's financial viability. Mr. Blake...who described himself as the "cheerleader" for the local hospital and the community...comes with an impressive resume in his 23 year career in the health care industry. After listening to Mr. Blake's presentation, many of the attentive Rotarians felt a sense of relief that the hospital is now in the hands of highly competent people who have the 46-year-old hospital's and our commuity's best interests at heart.

"It's got to prosper, it can't just survive," Blake told the Rotarians. He said the answer to restoring the hospital to black ink and profitability is to recruit surgeons who would come here to perform outpatient surgeries at the hospital, suregons that everyone would want to go to." "We have to do outpatient surgery," Blake said. In patients services are important to the hospital's future too, he added.

He said the goal is to create a "positive force" in the hospital and to rebuild its image in the community.

Blake said that logically the hospital's billing, now outsourced to a company in Alabama, should be brought back to the local hospital but not before problems associated with the billing procedures are corrected.

Blake praised the hospital's department heads and said he thinks the hospital staff is quite competent to provide continued high quality medical care for which the hospital has long been noted.

Blake said the hospital is not far from the break even point now, noting that much hard word lies ahead. He warned, however, "we all have our hand on the bomb. All of us have to work together to difuse the bomb," he confidently added.

A proposal to hold a public hearing in Pittsylvania County on the proposed transfer of the hospital's skilled care beds is uncertain at this time, Blake said.

Blake said an advisory committe of citizens in the community will be formed to offer input in the effort to rescue the hospital. Blake said he will remain as interim CEO until the job is done. "I work for the community, the doctors, etc.," said Blake.

In an effort to keep the community informed, Blake and his management team have consented to appear in a live interview on WHEO's "Community Conversation" tentatively scheduled for late next week. Stay tuned for details on "The Great Day in the Morning Show."

Let's keep the new interim management team in our prayers as they endeavor to reinvigorate a community resource that we can not afford to do without, the R.J. Reynolds Patrick County Memorial Hospital.