VIDEO: One County Still Reaping Benefits from Hospital Sale Years Later

GOLDEN TRIANGLE, Miss. (WCBI) – There’s a lot of discussion on the potential sale of OCH Regional Medical Center, but this isn’t the first time a county in our area has sold their hospital to a medical corporation.

For the counties who sold, there is a noticeable economic impact.

Some examples are the hospitals in Lafayette, Lee, and right here in Lowndes County.

The money from the sale goes into a trust, and only the interest can be withdrawn, but you might be surprised at what that interest can buy a county.

It’s been nearly 20 years since the sale of Golden Triangle Regional Medical Center.

From the beginning, a financial burden was lifted.

“All the debt was paid off, and then the hospital… we earned, we got $30 million that we put into the bank,” said Lowndes County Administrator, Ralph Billingsley.

That’s debt that would have fallen on taxpayers.

With that gone, the county has an economic advantage.

“It benefits the taxpayers of Lowndes county. It’s things we can do from a capital standpoint that we would not have been able to do without raising taxes if we did not have the 30 million,” said Billingsley.

The county dips into just the interest on the account when it sees a need, but that’s no small amount.

To date, it has provided over $10 million, and that money has been instrumental in projects across the county, including the building where we interviewed Billingsley.

“This administration building, we purchased and renovated it. We built a brand new health department, state of the art health department. We build a brand new E-911 building, emergency services building. We renovated the courthouse. We’ve invested in large capital projects,” said the County Administrator.

That $30 million in the bank has grown to 32 million, and it’s continuing to grow so that the interest can be used for future projects at no taxpayer expense.