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The first part of Tuesday evening at the new Mercy McCune-Brooks Hospital was a celebration of a new union — the second part was deciding how that union would work to provide health care in Carthage.
Top officials from the Sisters of Mercy Health System, including two of the Sisters themselves, were in Carthage on Tuesday to bless the hospital as part of the Mercy ministry and find out what Carthaginians wanted to see in the future at the Carthage hospital.
Lynn Britton, CEO of the 31-hospital, Mercy network, talked about how McCune-Brooks CEO Bob Copeland was one of the first people to contact Mercy and offer assistance after the devastating tornado of May 22, 2011 ravaged St. John’s Regional Medical Center, Mercy’s flagship hospital in the Joplin area.
He also talked about the process of negotiating the agreement with the city of Carthage that saw Mercy leasing McCune-Brooks from the city.
He said the blessing and the round-table discussion that followed were the first steps in bringing McCune-Brooks into the Mercy network and seeing what Mercy can do to make health care in Carthage better.
“One of the things that the Sisters modeled for us over the last several decades was that it was really important to listen to a community,” Britton said. “We should never presume that we know what the needs or wants or wished of a community from the health care perspective are for a community. So we want to listen tonight and begin that dialogue and start sorting out together how we can make some of those things happen.”
Ministers from several Carthage churches joined Father Bill Hodgson, pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Carthage, and Sister Mary Roch Rocklage, a member of the Mercy order and former CEO of Mercy, to bless the hospital and those who worked in it.
More than 100 people packed the hospital lobby for the blessing, then many of them went to Fairview Christian Church for dinner and a discussion about health care needs in Carthage.
More than 75 people broke up into small groups for the discussion.
Some groups talked about the need for more specialist. or the access to specialists through Mercy’s electronic systems. Others talked about the need to reach out to a wider cross-section of Carthage to find out what they need as far as health care.
“I’m really excited about this,” Britton said. “The feedback from the two table that reported out was just perfect, exactly the kind of things we wanted to learn about what was on the minds of the community of Carthage. Now we know and now we can start working with the management team to plan and sort out how we make some of these things happen. It was great, it was a very wonderful evening, a big success from my perspective.”
The first part of Tuesday evening at the new Mercy McCune-Brooks Hospital was a celebration of a new union — the second part was deciding how that union would work to provide health care in Carthage.
Top officials from the Sisters of Mercy Health System, including two of the Sisters themselves, were in Carthage on Tuesday to bless the hospital as part of the Mercy ministry and find out what Carthaginians wanted to see in the future at the Carthage hospital.
Lynn Britton, CEO of the 31-hospital, Mercy network, talked about how McCune-Brooks CEO Bob Copeland was one of the first people to contact Mercy and offer assistance after the devastating tornado of May 22, 2011 ravaged St. John’s Regional Medical Center, Mercy’s flagship hospital in the Joplin area.
He also talked about the process of negotiating the agreement with the city of Carthage that saw Mercy leasing McCune-Brooks from the city.
He said the blessing and the round-table discussion that followed were the first steps in bringing McCune-Brooks into the Mercy network and seeing what Mercy can do to make health care in Carthage better.
“One of the things that the Sisters modeled for us over the last several decades was that it was really important to listen to a community,” Britton said. “We should never presume that we know what the needs or wants or wished of a community from the health care perspective are for a community. So we want to listen tonight and begin that dialogue and start sorting out together how we can make some of those things happen.”
Ministers from several Carthage churches joined Father Bill Hodgson, pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Carthage, and Sister Mary Roch Rocklage, a member of the Mercy order and former CEO of Mercy, to bless the hospital and those who worked in it.
More than 100 people packed the hospital lobby for the blessing, then many of them went to Fairview Christian Church for dinner and a discussion about health care needs in Carthage.
More than 75 people broke up into small groups for the discussion.
Some groups talked about the need for more specialist. or the access to specialists through Mercy’s electronic systems. Others talked about the need to reach out to a wider cross-section of Carthage to find out what they need as far as health care.
“I’m really excited about this,” Britton said. “The feedback from the two table that reported out was just perfect, exactly the kind of things we wanted to learn about what was on the minds of the community of Carthage. Now we know and now we can start working with the management team to plan and sort out how we make some of these things happen. It was great, it was a very wonderful evening, a big success from my perspective.”
