Editorial

The Commercial Appeal

By Staff Reports

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton's pitch to make the Regional Medical Center at Memphis a three-state regional entity deserves serious consideration.

On the surface, it offers The Med another pill to ease its financial problems. The proposal also gives Mississippi and Arkansas an opportunity to save money while those states work to upgrade their emergency services.

Wharton floated the plan in Washington Tuesday. He envisions The Med operating under a formalized financial structure, administered by a permanent three-state regional authority. He admits the idea still is in a conceptual stage, but said it makes sense to have such an entity housed at The Med since it already has state-of-the-art medical equipment in hand. That would help Mississippi and Arkansas, which are trying to find funds to upgrade their trauma services.

The Med is the only Level 1 trauma center within 150 miles of Memphis. The hospital treats about 60,000 uninsured patients a year. That includes a goodly number of uninsured patients from Mississippi and Arkansas.

The Med has long complained that the two states have inadequately compensated the hospital for those patients.

Let us hope that territorial issues don't plow Wharton's idea under before it has time to sprout.