Special meeting to discuss mission agreement at Lee Health

There’s a big shift on the horizon for healthcare in Lee County.

The Lee Memorial Health System is set to become a private nonprofit entity. By doing that, Lee Health pledges that it can expand and enhance the services it offers to all of us.

After the unanimous vote, commissioners and many of the people in the meeting celebrated the conversion from public to private.

This vote was originally scheduled earlier this month but was delayed by Hurricane Milton.

There were some people weary about what exactly going private would mean for healthcare access to everyone and for transparency, but commissioners and the CEO of Lee Health assure that will all be protected.

A sea of blue of Lee Health nurses and staff rallied in support as Lee Health transitioned to a private non-profit after decades of being public.

“We worked really hard on the mission agreement to make sure that the safety net care was really guaranteed in that mission agreement. One of our top priorities was to make sure that if people were being cared for now, that they could continue to be cared for regardless of their ability to pay,” said Lee County Commissioner Brian Hammon.

Hammon is part of the unanimous vote on the mission agreement, allowing Lee Health’s transition to private healthcare.

One of the first people to get up for public comment before this vote was Steve Maxwell. He used the words “It’s hard to get in the kitchen when the cake is already baked and icing already splattered” to describe the vote.

He said he comes from a family that worked for Lee Health for 35 years and submitted to commissioners 100 petitions voicing concerns about privatizing healthcare.

We asked the CEO and president of Lee Health Dr. Larry Antonucci about this concern some people have.

“The issue for us is our commitment to the community and the fact that we will continue to be a not-for-profit system. That means every dollar that we take in that we’re not paying staff or supplies is going to be reinvested in the community, just as it has for many decades before. That doesn’t change,” Antonucci said.

And the oversight by the Lee County commissioners included in the mission agreement is something many Lee Health workers and community members are happy with. The reason Lee Health said it’s making this change is so it can properly compete to be the community’s healthcare provider, and part of this agreement is building a new and improved location nearby.