HCA is the parent company of the Mission Hospital system that broadly dominates WNC.

Not so long ago, darn near every politician, administrator, advisory board, attorney, physician, nonprofit, tourist-commerce promoter, mainstream media outlet, realtor and corner meth addict in Asheville sported an HCA cheerleader T-shirt.

In lockstep they turned our community-based hospital system over to HCA’s deep pockets, slick attorneys and relentlessly optimistic seducers who drooled through to victory. 

Is it true that the administrator’s public service award was a new job at HCA?

Advice to the vanity kings, queens and others who joined the surrender monkey parade and didn’t bother to do even a cursory google search of an organization broadly known as healthcare robber barons — never take a knife to a gunfight.

In capturing our hospital, HCA also incrementally maneuvered control of a majority of the outpatient healthcare services that surrounded it. 

 A 21-year-old stripper working on a lonely country-boy soldier from Nebraska could not have done a better job of milking a community.

We forgot that protecting our hospital was our job and gobbling up new hospitals was their job

They were clearly better at their job.

There is more to the story.

I got to know the boys and girls at Mission firsthand recently while undergoing treatment for a broken ankle.

The injury occurred while I was walking Salty during lunch. 

We were navigating a construction site and she pulled me a bit and I fell forward to my knees a bit and then fell again back on my ankle more than a bit. 

 I heard the snap, crackle, pop over the noise of the traffic. 

After rolling around a good bit more, I struggled up and down by Lenny’s to my office building. It hurt, but laying in the dirt on the edge of a turn-in with a Salty Dog licking my face was not an option. 

After a number of thoughtful interventions by my friends, neighbors and first responders, I was inserted into an ambulance.  

One of the EMS folks I will love forever hooked me up with some morphine. Note to self – talk to street corner meth addicts about where I can source some more of that stuff.

Four or five hours later – under the care of a dozen pairs or so of universally positive, helpful, and competent hands at Mission’s ER – I was sent home. 

The follow-up surgery a week later was uneventful except for my crutches hitting some liquid as I entered the surgery center. 

I hit the floor. 

Not to worry, the guy at the desk wanted me to have some recovery time, so he told the hospital staff walking by not to pick me up. 

Liability fears I imagine, but let’s just say his behavior/timing did not quite match up to Mission’s mission statement — “Above all else, we are committed to the care and improvement of human life.” 

The surgery experience was good as was my contact with another dozen or so universally positive, helpful and competent staff in Mission’s outpatient surgery center. 

As I am writing I am attempting to recover.

It is painful, and my recliner and I have decided to sue. No, not the construction folks or Mission/HCA. I am starting with Salty Dog. If I fail, I am going to then sue me. No one else deserves anything but peace and appreciation.

My experience with Mission – minus a free Chick-fil-A – could not have been better.

Thank you, Mission.

I know you’re a hive-minded part of the Borg. I know that money comes first. I know that a majority of your nursing staff are transients. I know that your staff morale is down in the boondocks. I know that patients get lost in your bureaucracy.

I also know that – contrary to your mission statement – you folks are an enterprise that puts money first and everything else later.

But I also know you didn’t create our hybrid goofy politicalistic-capitalistic-socialistic-unrealistic healthcare system. 

Politicians, people wanting something for nothing, and a disengaged public did that. You were merely masters at exploiting the carnage.

Note to everyone who is not an HCA stockholder: Asheville went to a gunfight with a knife after apparently smoking a big fat one.

None of the hand-wringing, political declarations of outrage, certification threats, or other motions over actions are going to do anything but provide headlines.

If they were good at stealing our hospital, they are going to be even better at holding on to it.

Mission will continue to be owned by HCA.

Money will be job one, staff will struggle with being stretched, and there will be casualties from HCA’s constricted staffing and resource policies.  

But thankfully, for most of their patients, good things will happen there.