Insight Health CEO meets with community to talk about reopening the hospital

For some time now, we were hearing reports that plans to reopen Insight Hospital and Medical Center Trumbull were in the works.

CEO Jawad Shah made an appearance at the Trumbull County Commissioners meeting and later a sat down for a one on one discussion with 21 News Reporter Kaitlyn McCarthy to talk about those plans, but they had no shape.

"If we don't have enough employees we simply can't open," Shah said. "We do believe that there will be enough and we're putting out inquiries as to who's available still. In these several months we know that several employees are not gonna come back, they found other positions," he said.

Right now it's uncertain what the employees would be coming back to or when.

Promises were made before, like reopening the emergency room in June which didn't happen.

Now, Shah says there is a change of ownership so the Trumbull hospital is no longer affiliated with Steward Health.

Ohio Nurses Association leaders at the meeting were still looking for answers in unsettled matters.

"You've failed to provide a warn notice. You failed to provide reasonable layoff notice. Our contract required two weeks notice. Employees were not given that, they were not paid. Employees are still waiting for vacation leave to be reconciled. There's many issues that are still in dispute," one nurse said.

There was also a demand on information from the AFSCME union.

"We need to know what your intentions are, what goals you want to achieve, so that we can match them up with ours and negotiate effectively, efficiently so that we can get my people back," Tom Connelly, AFSCME union president said.

Commissioners had an optimistic approach, believing Shah will reopen the hospital.

"He knows what some of the problems are, he knows what the financial possibilities gonna be and he's willing to come back and get it open and just get it up and running so that's a positive sign for me," Tony Bernard, Trumbull County Commissioner said.

Shah hopes to reopen in the next few weeks, starting with the emergency room but again there are no plans set in stone.