Been thinking about Susan Mclendon's fight to be able to visit her son in the Glen Rose Nursing Home. I listened yesterday to a tape of a recording with the attorneys, with the father, with the stepfather, but not the mother, in 2006. -I made a shorter version of this, here, and pardon me while I digress but listen to a few things on this (if you want, again, the entire audio, that's the link before this-this one is about 11 minutes). It seems that no one disagreed about allowing her 5 days a week to see her son... but saying it and allowing it and making sure nursing home staff know about it appears to be 3 different things.

Anyway, I got to thinking about the status of the Glen Rose Nursing Home yesterday. Thought I had written before about a lawsuit that was up in 2002 but apparently I didn/t. Here's case # No. 10-01-308-CV from the 10th court of appeals. Here were the people involved in the case: SADIE S. SNELLING AND KATHRYN J. NEWMAN, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS HEIRS AND STATUTORY  BENEFICIARIES OF EDITH ELIZABETH BOWMAN, DECEASED, AND AS REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ESTATE OF EDITH ELIZABETH BOWMAN, DECEASED, Appellants v. STEVEN D. MIMS, INDIVIDUALLY, BRENDA ANN STRICKLAND, INDIVIDUALLY, SOMERVELL COUNTY HEALTH CARE AUTHORITY D/B/A GLEN ROSE MEDICAL CENTER NURSING HOME, AND MIKE FORD, P.M. MILAM, DOROTHY GIBBS, EVALENE HOWELL, SID UNDERWOOD,NANCY WILLIS, AND SCOT MAY, JOINTLY, Appellees. Let me say right here that I have no idea about this case, whether it had merit or justly should have been thrown out, but my interest is in the entity of the Glen Rose Nursing home. The case says this:

Before discussing whether the pleadings invoke the court’s jurisdiction, we must determine whether statutes which define and describe the authority of public health entities are dispositive of this issue. The Health and Safety Code provides for a number of means by which a county may create, own, and operate facilities to deliver health care. For example, chapter 221 allows a county to create a corporation to provide, inter alia, hospital and nursing home facilities. Tex. Health & Safety Code Ann. §§ 221.003(8), (10), 221.011 (Vernon 2001). A county may own and operate a nursing home if the county meets the licensing requirements outlined in chapter 242. Id. §§ 242.002(7), 242.031 (Vernon 2001). A county may also create a “county hospital authority”—a “political subdivision”—to create and operate hospitals and other facilities, but not nursing homes. Section 223.002 defines “hospital project” to exclude nursing homes. Tex. Health & Safety Code Ann. §223.002 (Vernon 2001). Close Id. §§ 264.002(1), (5), 264.003 (Vernon 2001). Although in the alleged order of the Commissioners Court, attached to the plea to the jurisdiction, the commissioners called the entity they created a “Health Care Authority,” there is no reference in the statutes to that term. Instead, what the commissioners created, according to the express language in the order, is a “hospital authority” under chapter 264. The term “Health Care Authority” is part of the name of the entity the commissioners created. However, by express statutory prohibition, a county hospital authority may not own and operate a nursing home. Id. Marks’s affidavit states that the authority was created in 1993, which is after chapters 223 and 264 replaced formerarticles that did not exclude nursing homes from the types of projects a hospital authority could be involved in. Tex.R. Civ. Stat. Ann. arts. 4437e-2(g), 4494r § 2 (Vernon 1976). Therefore, the county cannot claim that when itcreated the authority, it could legally own and operate a nursing home. Close The quagmire that presents to us is: although the Health Care Authority may have been legally created as a county hospital authority, its actions in owning and operating the nursing home may not be authorized by statute.

It was after this that the Glen Rose Nursing Home LLC, part of the Glen Rose Medical Center ops, was created. And, as listed here before, the Glen Rose Medical Center and the Glen Rose Nursing Home are not owners of the property et al.-as shown by the lease referenced on this post, they only have intangible rights, and rights to the accounts receivables, but Somervell County continues to own the property etc.

So my question is this. Yes, the Glen Rose Medical Center is a private non-profit headed by Gary Marks, but it leases for a buck a year, for both/either the GRMC or GRNH, the property, etc from Somervell County. That means the taxpayer. That means you and me. And again, this looks to be in line with the section above that says that a county can create a corporation to run the hospital, nursing home, etc. But it can't be two ways, right? Either the county has created the 5013cs that are the Glen Rose Medical Center and Nursing Home for the purpose of REALLY running them via a one dollar per year lease OR the nursing home is private. But it's actually neither in this case.

What I'm getting at is that Ms Mclendon has been told that she cannot go onto nursing home property because it is private. But Somervell County (you and me) are the owners. It isn't like it's some corporation that owns the building and is leasing it out to yet another private corporation, such as in a business park. It's us paying for this building that WE own and pay taxes for and making a choice to lease it out. I believe that makes it a very gray area as to whether any person can actually be ordered out of the nursing home and prevented from seeing a family member.