New Hanover Regional Medical Center board of trustees is taking steps to accommodate a recent request from New Hanover County Board of Commissioners Chairman Jason Thompson about how its board is structured.

In an April 26 letter, Thompson asks that the board of trustees change its bylaws to allow commissioner-appointed trustees to be “removed without cause by a majority of the Board of Commissioners” and that the trustees “shall serve at the pleasure of the Board of Commissioners.”

Currently, the NHRMC Board of Trustees bylaws state that trustees can only be removed because of mental and physical incapacity, can no longer fulfill the trustee responsibilities, misses more than 25 percent of the meetings or who is “guilty of gross misconduct.”
NHRMC Board of Trustees Chairman David Sims said that the trustees are generally supportive of the change.

“I don’t see that this would be a problem,” Sims said. The change has not been enacted yet because of certain procedures related to bylaw changes.

Sims said he expects the change to be approved this summer, as the executive committee has met on the issue and then will present it to the rest of the 18-member board of trustees, 12 of which are appointed by New Hanover County.
Sims and NHRMC CEO Jack Barto met with Thompson about the changes and understood his reasoning. They also inquired about any possible wrongdoing that Thompson suspected of the board of trustees.

“(Thompson’s) comments were that he’s very satisfied with the board as a whole,” Sims said.

Thompson requested the change because of recent flare-ups concerning members of the ABC Board and how they awarded employee and building contracts. The members of that board resigned and recently were replaced.

“There were three boards, the ABC board, the airport authority and the hospital had different rules than the 31 boards, and I’m trying to get them on the same sheet of music, as simple as that,” Thompson said.

“The hospital authority has been very amenable to it, they all understand that we’re ultimately responsible, we can hire or fire.”

The county owns New Hanover Regional Medical Center and the hospital land, according to NHRMC spokeswoman Martha Harlan.

The hospital essentially has no lease on the land or building, paying $1 per year. But the county gives no other tax money to the hospital and NHRMC is a non-profit entity with its own operating expenses.

NHRMC makes recommendations to the county commissioners to fulfill the positions, according to Harlan but that the ultimate choice is left to the commissioners.