Democracy in Peril

By Steve Sebelius

THE SUNRISE ALSO RISES: Quick: You get into a bad car accident at Interstate 15 and Spring Mountain Road. Which trauma center does Mercy Ambulance rush you to?

Right now, the answer is easy: University Medical Center, the only trauma center in the valley.

But come Jan. 1, the answer will be less clear. That's when Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center will open its own trauma center.

And which patients get sent to which hospital is an open question, yet to be answered by county health officials or--if the county fails to decide by year's end--perhaps the state.

Before we get there, however, there's the obligatory stop in court, where all medical issues eventually end up. And while some will tell you a planned county lawsuit is all about UMC protecting its turf from the politically connected Sunrise, there's a lot more at stake than that.

It was only earlier this year, in fact, that the state rebuffed Sunrise's attempt to get a provisional license to run a trauma center, because a county task force was still studying the issue. But one retirement and one promotion later, the new state Health Division administrator had a different view: He granted Sunrise the temporary license, effective Jan. 1, on July 14, the very day the county's health district was finalizing its recommendations to the state, a package that suddenly looked superfluous.

Hence, the lawsuit.

All involved in the debate say they only want the best for patients. Sunrise argues--persuasively--that the valley needs another trauma center, especially if something happens to UMC. But county officials argue--also persuasively--that Sunrise's trauma center court hurt UMC, upon which the poor rely for health care. At the end of the day, that means a greater subsidy for UMC from taxpayers, since the county hospital (unlike a private one) can't just fold up if it doesn't make a profit.

And that could hurt everybody.

Of course, there are politics involved. Sunrise has hired the Rogich Communications Group, headed by Republican consultant Sig Rogich, who helped get Gov. Kenny Guinn elected in 1998. High-level lobbying has, of course, taken place. And on the other side, AFL-CIO Secretary/Treasurer Danny Thompson wrote an angry letter to Guinn, urging that the task force's voice be heard.

And the age-old rivalry between UMC and Sunrise is on full display once more, the way it was in 2002, when a UMC proposal to build a children's hospital on the West Charleston Boulevard campus was shot down by voters. The rivalry is so thick that a Sunrise official once ordered that an ambulance that bore the UMC logo never darken Sunrise's parking lot ever again.

In an ideal world, UMC, Sunrise and county health officials would come together and work out a fair plan whereby some patients would go to Sunrise and others to UMC, balanced so that neither hospital ends up caring for a disproportionate share of the uninsured.

Too bad we live in the real world. See you in court.