Doctors, patients, nurses, ambulance drivers — even hospital board members — were unaware of a crisis brewing at Haywood Regional Medical Center that jeopardized its Medicare and Medicaid status and, as a result, the future of the hospital.

By Julia Merchant • Staff Writer

Emergency rooms crowded with mentally ill patients. Sheriff’s deputies spending 96 hours supervising one individual. A sick man or woman whose situation is growing more dire by the second. It all adds up to a recipe for disaster — and North Carolina’s mental health care system is in imminent danger of becoming just that.

Every morning, the dispatcher for Haywood Emergency Medical Services starts his shift with a call to the emergency room of Haywood Regional Medical Center.

“Is there an orthopedist on call today?” the dispatcher asks.

An article that appeared in The Smoky Mountain News opinion section two weeks ago based on an anonymous interview with several nurses from the Haywood Regional Medical Center Emergency department prompted a rebuttal from hospital employees last week.

All three Haywood Regional Medical Center board members were reappointed this week for another three years by the Haywood County commissioners.

By Michael Rey

I would like to offer some words of support for those Emergency Department Nurses at Haywood Regional Medical Center who were brave enough to contribute to the debate over recent changes there (I am referring to the article that appeared in The Smoky Mountain News on April 24). Even speaking anonymously, they have all put their jobs on the line.

The board of the Haywood Regional Medical Center heard a glowing report last week on how the hospital’s emergency department is going following an abrupt transition four months ago.

One of the top issues that emerged during county commissioner interviews of hospital board applicants last week was the need for better-trained, better-paid and additional nurses at Haywood Regional Medical Center.

The rift between Haywood Regional Medical Center administration and the medical community needs to be repaired, and public confidence in the hospital restored, Haywood County commissioners said last week.

Many in the community will be watching closely in April when the Haywood County Board of Commissioners appoint three members to the board of Haywood Regional Medical Center.