The rezoning request was approved by a 4-1 vote by the city Planning Commission and was also recommended by city officials. Last month’s Planning Commission meeting lasted more than 4 1/2 hours.
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KHN officials restated that they need to have the flexibility of providing patients with overnight beds so that they could stay closer to home instead of being shipped to another KHN facility when the patient gets to the 23-hour, 59-minute mark.
Daniel Tryon, KHN Middletown administrator, said more than 8,000 people have been treated at the new Middletown facility that opened in August. He also noted that more than 13,000 Middletown residents, or about 26 percent of the city’s population, selected KHN.
“We chose to locate closer to our patients here to provide high-quality care,” Tryon said.
He also said KHN participates with the majority of area’s Affordable Care Act plans and with Medicaid providers. Tryon noted that 58 percent of the patients that have used KHN’s local emergency room were either underinsured or uninsured.
Mike Uhl, president of Atrium Medical Center, said Premier Health “fully respects the difficult position the city is in” with this decision that will have affect Middletown’s second-largest employer and impact the city long term.
Uhl said his organization “firmly believes” that the rezoning request does not meet the city Development Code’s criteria. He said Premier Health did not initially oppose KHN building its facility but it does oppose the addition of inpatient beds.
“We need to make sure you are fully informed,” Uhl said.
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He said KHN’s request will have a significant impact on the community and that “it will raise the cost of healthcare in the community and is an unnecessary duplication of healthcare resources in the community.” He also questioned the need for more inpatient beds when the healthcare industry is heading toward an outpatient model.
Uhl question KHN’s claim of serving 13,000 people from Middletown, noting that the 45044 ZIP code also includes Liberty Twp. He also said no decisions should be made on this request until the city’s new master plan is completed sometime in 2019.
Council heard the first reading of an ordinance to change the zoning of the two parcels on Ohio 122 and Union Road. A decision is expected to be made at council’s Jan. 8 meeting.
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