GRAND HAVEN —Last June, by an overwhelming margin of more than two-to-one, voters in the six municipalities that owned North Ottawa Community Hospital (NOCH) said yes to converting the facility into a private, nonprofit corporation.
As a result of the vote, efforts to accomplish the switch are underway and are nearing completion. Operations of the hospital are to be transferred from the old community-owned, tax-levying authority to a private corporation by early 1997. NOCH will then have wider latitude to purchase affiliates and enter into partnerships with physicians groups, and to compete without the federal Freedom of Information Act requirement that its files be open to review by competitors.
Opponents argued that a yes vote would mean that voters would be giving away a $60 million asset, but the public apparently accepted the other side’s claim that the change would produce more competition and better health care.
By early August, serious consideration was underway in Grand Haven to privatize another local entity—Ottawa County’s Community Haven adult foster-care facility. Loren Snippe, director of the county Family Independence Agency, told the Holland Sentinel that privatization could lead to better service for the 55 residents and an annual $800,000 savings for taxpayers.
