DELAWARE — An OhioHealth physician who delivered babies at Grady Memorial Hospital for decades says if the health system had developed Grady like Dublin Methodist Hospital, “we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
Dr. Thomas Hubbell spent more than 40 years practicing family medicine with OhioHealth. He served as president of Grady’s medical staff from 1995 to 1998 and again from 2004 to 2010, representing the hospital’s physicians as Grady was integrated into the OhioHealth system following the 2005 affiliation agreement.
He also served on Grady Memorial Hospital’s board of trustees and the Healthcare Foundation of Delaware County, the nonprofit designated to oversee OhioHealth’s compliance with the affiliation agreement.
Now, Hubbell is asking Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson to investigate whether OhioHealth is honoring the commitments it made when it assumed control of Grady Memorial Hospital. He co-authored a three-page letter sent June 23 with former Healthcare Foundation members Ralph Hodges and Craig Wanner. OhioHealth President and CEO Dr. Stephen Markovich was copied on the letter.
Hodges and Wanner also served on Grady’s board of trustees, and Hodges previously served on the OhioHealth Board of Trustees.
In an interview with Delaware Source, Hubbell discussed his letter to the attorney general, how the Healthcare Foundation tried several times to encourage OhioHealth to build a new hospital to replace Grady, and why the Foundation ultimately dissolved in 2021.
He isn’t the only one who has spoken out after OhioHealth announced the planned closure of Grady Memorial Hospital’s inpatient maternity unit on July 31.
Jonathan Lewis, former legal counsel to Grady Memorial, wrote an eight-page legal analysis that dissects his belief that the planned closure conflicts with commitments OhioHealth made when it assumed control of the hospital.
Changes at Grady Memorial
OhioHealth announced the planned closure of Grady’s maternity unit on June 10, which would effectively end hospital births in Delaware County.
Hubbell said he first learned of changes coming to Grady Memorial a few years ago.
“I was shocked when it was raised a few years ago, and I met with the hospital president and told him it was a really bad idea,” he said. “Not that I had any influence, but he asked to meet with me and I did.
“Other members of the medical staff have voiced their objections, so the lack of response is disappointing.”
According to OhioHealth, Delaware County residents routinely give birth at OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital, OhioHealth Dublin Methodist Hospital and OhioHealth Marion General Hospital.
Hubbell said OhioHealth’s argument that more women are choosing to deliver elsewhere actually supports, rather than undermines, his interpretation of the affiliation agreement.
“OhioHealth maintains that patients are by large numbers choosing to go elsewhere for delivery,” Hubbell said. “To me, that is an admission that they have not maintained the services in a market-competitive condition.”
“That needs to happen so that women can deliver closer to home.”
Despite his criticism, Hubbell said he continues to work part time as a preceptor in OhioHealth’s family medicine residency program at Dublin Methodist Hospital and emphasized he is not condemning the health system as a whole.
“It’s just that they made a commitment, and they need to deliver,” he said.
A copy of Dr. Hubbell’s letter to the Ohio Attorney General. Story continues below:
Plans for a new hospital
Hubbell said Grady’s leadership anticipated the need for a new hospital long before the 2005 affiliation agreement was signed.
According to Hubbell, Grady had already purchased roughly 100 acres off U.S. Route 23, and the city of Delaware had invested in infrastructure to support future development.
After OhioHealth assumed control of the hospital, Hubbell said discussions about building a replacement hospital continued for years.
“Year after year we agitated to get on with the project of building a new hospital,” Hubbell said.
He said he regularly attended meetings involving representatives of the Healthcare Foundation, planners, construction officials and OhioHealth President and CEO Dr. Stephen Markovich to discuss plans for the new campus.
“For 16 years, the Healthcare Foundation met periodically with representatives of OhioHealth to discuss the status of and plans for the hospital,” he wrote in the letter.
“In addition, the Foundation incessantly lobbied executives and OhioHealth board members for the construction of a new, replacement hospital in Delaware at a site purchased for this purpose prior to the acquisition.
“While not a commitment of the agreement, OhioHealth could not be convinced of this objective.”
Today, that 100-acre site — now on Ohio Health Boulevard — has an OhioHealth medical office building on it.
Any talks about a replacement hospital “just kind of dried up,” Hubbell said.
But one detail of those future plans has stayed with him.
“The site plan that was drawn up with these meetings of 15 people, 10-15 meetings, included a maternity hospital,” Hubbell said. “[So it was even] the intention then, and I’m sorry it got lost since.”
While Hubbell acknowledged the affiliation agreement does not explicitly require OhioHealth to build a replacement hospital, he said he believes it does require the health system to maintain Grady in a market-competitive condition until one is built.
“The agreement, in my view, very clearly states that the current Grady hospital located on West Central Avenue in Delaware, Ohio, will be maintained [by OhioHealth] in a market competitive condition for the core services identified,” Hubbell said.
“[And will be maintained] until such time as a new replacement acute care hospital is built by OhioHealth within the city limits of Delaware.
“To me, that is very, very binding.”
Hubbell compares Grady to Dublin Methodist
Hubbell said questions about why OhioHealth invested heavily in Dublin Methodist Hospital while making fewer infrastructure investments at Grady are warranted.
He pointed to the growth of Dublin Methodist Hospital, which occurred around the same time OhioHealth assumed control of Grady Memorial Hospital.
“They found a way to do it in Dublin. They hired the people, they got the commitments from the doctors, created the depth of service around obstetrics,” he said. “They did it beautifully in Dublin.”
Hubbell said he remembers raising concerns before the affiliation agreement was finalized.
During a Grady board meeting before the affiliation, he asked OhioHealth officials whether developing Dublin Methodist would interfere with the health system’s commitments to Grady.
“We were assured, ‘No, it won’t interfere,'” Hubbell said. “It did.
“Somehow they didn’t seem to have any energy or cash to do the job at Grady. The obvious thing is they were doing it over there.”
Why did the Healthcare Foundation dissolve?
Hubbell said the Healthcare Foundation of Delaware County (HFDC) was created with two primary responsibilities: to ensure OhioHealth complied with the 2005 affiliation agreement and to advocate for construction of a replacement Grady Memorial Hospital.
Prior to the official affiliation, OhioHealth purchased a 25% share of Grady in the 1990s, Hubbell said. Once the agreement finalized, that principle investment came back to the hospital.
The HFDC was funded through the interest from that investment income, which Hubbell estimated was around $700,000.
Hubbell said the money the foundation received was for “enforcing the agreement.”
But after talks of a new hospital fell through, and the HFDC felt confident OhioHealth was upholding the agreement, Hubbell said the money had to go somewhere.
“So, we started making charitable donations to various other organizations that had a health-related activity, like the OhioHealth Foundation,” Hubbell said.
In 2021, with talks of a new hospital nonexistent and OhioHealth properly upholding the agreement, the HFDC dissolved.
Delaware Source asked Hubbell if he wishes the board went a different route with the OhioHealth affiliation.
“It’s easy to say that today,” he said. “At the time it seemed like the right choice, and it definitely was for a long time.”
He credited OhioHealth with bringing strong leadership to the hospital in the years following the affiliation.
“They brought on a hospital president who was delightful to work with,” Hubbell said. “I worked with him on all this affiliation stuff for years, and he was fabulous.
“A lot of good things happened that now, lately, aren’t.”
