Trumbull County Commissioners schedule meeting with Insight representatives
The Trumbull County Board of Commissioners will be meeting with representatives from Insight Health Systems in regards to the potential reopening of both Insight Hospital and Medical Center Trumbull and Insight Rehabilitation Hospital Hillside.
"They had wanted to set up a meeting basically to get support from the commissioners on the reopening of Hillside and Trumbull," Commissioner Rick Hernandez said.
The meeting is set for Tuesday, July 22 with Insight representatives, and invites will be sent out to federal, state and local officials.
"They wanted to wait until their licensing was in order," Hernandez said. "As you know when they went through Steward, Steward Health basically took all the money and ran which put Insight out of business," he said.
However, the licenses are still not quite in order.
Insight's attorney Holly Gross told 21 News Reporter Sydney Canty, "We're looking forward to the meeting. We do not have the Medicare or Medicaid licenses yet. We will continue to work through that diligently to obtain our independent licensing from Steward. We're also working on certifications and the C.A.R.F. accreditation."
It's unclear if Insight CEO Jawad Shah will be attending the meeting himself but an Insight representative will be there, according to Gross.
Hernandez said commissioners are in the process of sending invites to the meeting out to representatives from U.S. Senator Bernie Moreno and Valley Congressman Dave Joyce's offices, as well as Warren Mayor Doug Franklin and state Senators Bernie Moreno and Nick Santucci.
Hernandez said he's "cautiously optimistic" about the hospitals reopening, saying it seems like Insight "really means business," about opening back up.
AFSCME President Tom Connelly said he's giving Insight until Thursday to reach out to him and if they don't he will, "Release the dogs. We are tired of the lack of information, we want our hospitals back open our employees back to work and to not be excluded," Connelly said.
21 News followed up with Connelly on Thursday and he told us Insight did speak with him and told him they were looking into a labor manager so the union could be more in the loop with what is going on with the hospitals.
From here, Connelly says he's hoping to sit down with a represenative from Insight face to face to discuss what needs to happen for the hospital to reopen and what happens if and when it does.
Connelly adds that this process is moving a lot slower than he'd like and that many union members are nervous to come back and are leaving for other jobs. Connelly says he hopes these talks could quell some of those fears.