Writer wishes hospital board well in doctor issue

Dear editor:

In response to the letter written by Mr. and Mrs. Yalch regarding the "Doctors" (March 24 Mountain Home News), I submit the following. I will address the trivia first.

I am not a "Boise resident." My mailing address was assigned to me by the USPS. I am a resident of Elmore County. I vote in Elmore County and my vehicles are registered in the county. I do most of my shopping in Mountain Home for daily essentials as well as purchasing an automobile and furniture. I try to support the local merchants to the best that I can.

I spend very little time in Boise. I consider Mountain Home as my hometown.

My "neighbor" has absolutely NO input, advice or information from me in regards to my letter. The letter was composed 100 percent from information contained in the Mountain Home News in the form of letters to the editor and the single front page article contained in the March 10 issue.

The following comments are in response to the letter from the Yalch's.

I have no problem separating (Trinity Mountain Medical Center) from the Trinity Physicians Group. I believe that in most (but not all) common day to day usage that they are interchangeable, but in the interest of accuracy I will refer to the TPG separately. Likewise, I have no problem with who writes the checks for the staff. In any case, they do a great job as I have previously stated.

You did a pretty good job of extracting most of what I said regarding prior negotiations between TPG and the two doctors. You left out, however, a very important part of my statement. What was left out was the qualifier, "I assume."

I freely admit that I do not know the extent or the content of the discussions that were ongoing for some period of time. I further submit that you do not know, either. It is obvious that when the discussions were all over and no accord was reached that no contract was offered at that time. What neither of us knows is if a contract offer or counteroffer was a part of the discussions prior to reaching the end.

The two doctors were offered and accepted a contract by TPG to practice within the clinic. Without this contract, they would not have been in the clinic, so let's put the credit right back with TPG.

I have no problem with the area of mediation as stated except to add that this attempt was after the events (mentioned above) had occurred and at that time there was no basis to enter into mediation.

I did not state that Elmore Medical Center was attempting to place the doctors locally. I said Elmore Medical Center clearly. Clearly, EMC, through the board, had begun and is continuing this effort.

As a side note, I received a phone call from one of my new fans after my letter was published. Her name is Jackie, and she also took me to task for my letter. Among the areas she shared with me was the fact that another medical facility in Mountain Home (name available upon request) had indeed offered Dr. Baldridge a contact, but he could only bring half of his patients to this facility. She indicated that this restriction made the offer unacceptable.

I asked Jackie where she got this information, and her reply was, "Well everybody knows this!" Have the Yalch's heard of this offer?

I will accept your statements concerning your doctor's non-involvement in this action. I would like to think you will be gracious enough to accept my statement concerning my doctor's non-involvement in my initial letter.

In closing, I support the mission statement of the EMC as stated. But as a gentle reminder, the issue that we are discussing is but a small (but important) part of fulfilling the stated goals of EMC. I would submit that the effort of coordinating the operation of EMC is of such a complex nature that you and I cannot begin to fully appreciate this effort.

As the EMC board addresses this issue, I wish them well. I also hope that they will be able to find a solution where all parties can have a degree of satisfaction.

Floyd Gene Wilson