During a candidate forum for city commission seat 5 featuring incumbent Dianne Williams-Cox and challengers Tifany Hill and Dot Inman-Johnson, sponsored by the Capital Region News Collaborative and the League of Women Voters, Inman-Johnson responded with a false statement in her answer to a question related to the FSU Health purchase of the city of Tallahassee owned hospital assets.
In her answer to question on the subject, Inman-Johnson said FSU Health is not contractually obligated to provide indigent care to patients served by Tallahassee Memorial Hospital (TMH) under the new agreement. Inman-Johnson said, “We don’t have a contract that shows a commitment that FSU will continue that commitment…”
However, that is not the case.
It has been widely reported that the agreement signed in April, which transferred city owned hospital assets to FSU Health, has the same provisions for indigent care that the City of Tallahassee agreement with TMH provided. The new agreement requires FSU Health and TMH to provide at least the same amount of indigent care that was provided under the City of Tallahassee agreement with TMH.
The relevant contract language, provided below, shows that FSU and TMH have an agreement related to charity care via the FSU-TMH Amended and Restated Lease.
The contract can be viewed here.
In addition to the contractual language, FSU Health has noted that “Charity care and low-income medical access are unchanged by the partnership with Florida State University. The transition explicitly protects vulnerable populations. The legal property deeds transferred from the city include strict, ironclad restrictions requiring FSU and TMH to maintain charity and indigent care commitments that are at least as generous as those previously set forth in the City-TMH lease agreement.”
TR was told that the failure of FSU Health to meet the contractual obligations and provide the appropriate level of charity care would be a breach of contract.
When asked about her statement, Inman Johnson told TR, via an email, that “No clarifying statement is needed since the forum was live streamed and your statement is a lie. I stated (paraphrased) that the City sold TMH at a bargain basement price before finalizing the contract to ensure indigent health would continue; and that is exactly what happened.”
Be the first to leave a comment on this article.