The Wrangell Medical Center board plans to wait for a new hospital administrator before moving forward with talks to possibly reinstate Doctor Greg Salard’s hospital privileges.
The previous medical board initially denied Salard’s hospital privileges last November. A Superior court judge in December then ordered Salard’s work rights be reinstated until a fair review hearing was conducted. The board served as that review committee in March and voted to permanently end the doctor’s contract with the hospital. The fight over reinstating Salard’s credentials has since moved back into the courtroom and the newly-elected medical board discussed the issue Wednesday night during its regular meeting. Board member Dorothy Sweat expressed frustration over the process and wanted to move forward as soon as possible.
“I’ve been a part of this for a long, long time, and it’s time that we look at what other people are saying instead of just preconceived ideas,” she said.
She requested a letter, which Salard had written to the board, be discussed during the meeting. In that letter, Salard takes issue with the review hearing in March and the previous board as a whole and said “The hearing members were the exact same board members who had denied my privileges to begin with.” But Board President Woody Wilson was apprehensive about adding such a controversial topic to the meeting’s agenda.
“We just became a board and this notice on the agenda has been out there, and people haven’t seen any reference to this item on the agenda. Even if we did take action on it this evening, we might be criticized for having not noticed a meeting, and in my view, it wouldn’t be correct to do that,” he said.
Wilson pointed out there is currently a great deal of what he calls “mistrust” with the medical board. He also said if the board moves forward with the credentialing process, those discussions must be held behind closed doors. Some board members disagreed, but all finally approved a special meeting to be held October 3 where they plan to talk about possibly reinstating Salard’s privileges. Any real action will be contingent upon a new hospital administrator being in place.
