Candidates for Sarasota Memorial Hospital Board: South County

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ONLINE VOTER GUIDE: Read candidate bios and Q&A's for Manatee and Sarasota primaries

Five incumbents on Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s nine-member, unpaid board have competition for their seats this year, and since all candidates belong to the Republican Party, the races will be decided in the Aug. 26 primary.

Although the members represent specific areas, they are elected by voters countywide.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital. (Herald-Tribune archive / 2013)

Sarasota Memorial Hospital. (Herald-Tribune archive / 2013)

Board members oversee a $540 million budget for the public health care system, with just over $40 million of that coming from county property taxes. In recent years the system has expanded aggressively, adding a circle of urgent care centers and an emergency room in North Port.

The five incumbents say the experience they bring to the table is especially important this year, after the recent departure of longtime CEO Gwen MacKenzie. In July the board tapped interim CEO David Verinder to replace her permanently as part of the succession plan, but they maintain that knowledge of ongoing issues is important to the transition.

The challengers include a businessman who works with the health care industry, a registered nurse, a hearing aid specialist, an emergency medical technician and a former security guard at Sarasota Memorial. Three of the five have been active in local politics.

Here are the candidates in the two South County races:

Southern District, Seat 1

Darryl W. Henry

Darryl W. Henry

Darryl W. Henry was elected to the hospital board in 2010 and is seeking a second term. He retired to North Port in 2004 after a career in the Navy and as a civilian employee in the Department of Defense, where he oversaw a $143 million budget. In 2006, he was treated for a stroke at Sarasota Memorial.

In his first four years, Henry said, he has taken the lead on several initiatives.

“I cannot take full credit,” he said, “but on the board I am the thorn in people’s sides for getting rid of the current relationship with the BayCare group.”

The board entered into a formal alliance in December 2012 with BayCare Health Systems, a large Tampa Bay hospital chain. In June the management contract between the two systems was canceled, although they remain strategic partners in some cost-sharing initiatives.

Henry said the most important quality for a board member is “to be willing to spend the time and learn. It’s a lot of time. It’s not unusual for meetings to start at 7 in the morning, and we don’t leave until 5:30. When you have to go home to North Port, that’s a long day.”

David Garofalo (Courtesy photo)

David Garofalo (Courtesy photo)

Challenger David Garofalo has served on the North Port City Commission, but lost his bid for a second term in 2012 after a DUI arrest in Indianapolis six months earlier. He was found guilty in Indiana last year, but has retained his job as a firefighter and emergency medical technician in Pasco County.

“I have a desire to be in public service again, and the hospital board has always been an interesting board,” Garofalo said. “I have a history of dealing with people and being a proven leader, collaborator and compromiser.”

He said that if elected, he plans to push for a larger presence by the health care system in the South County — not necessarily another hospital, but perhaps specialty centers that would include maternity services.

“I’m not seeing bricks and mortar south of Clark Road,” he said. “The main hospital is almost the furthest northwest you can go in Sarasota County. The complaint you hear in South County is coming from the general public saying that we don’t have a full-fledged hospital, and yet we pay taxes.”

Southern District, Seat 2

Gregory A. Carter (Courtesy photo)

Gregory A. Carter (Courtesy photo)

Gregory A. Carter, a retired engineer, has represented South County on the hospital board since 2002. He said he would like to “continue the success the hospital has had, in concert with the other eight board members.”

Carter said that for him, a priority will be to serve people who lack health care coverage, while keeping the health care system solvent.

“As a safety net hospital, we have to advocate for those in need, and at the same time not rely as much on the tax revenue,” he said. “This means we need to sharpen our game, as far as management, to make better use of the money we do have and be good stewards of the investments.”

Lydia Tower (Courtesy photo)

Lydia Tower (Courtesy photo)

Challenger Lydia Tower spent her nursing career in Illinois before moving to Florida, and is the wife of former North Port city commissioner Fred Tower. She still works part-time as a nurse in Port Charlotte.

Tower said she had volunteered to serve on a Sarasota Memorial committee, and then decided to run for the board.

She believes her experience in quality control as an operating room nurse would help Sarasota Memorial address issues such as complication rates. According to preliminary data released in June by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the hospital did not meet new federal quality standards in a ranking that included infection rates, blood clots, bed sores and falls.

“I think that’s huge,” Tower said. “Those scores have to be brought up. Otherwise, it’s going to affect how consumers and patients look at the hospital, and affect the bottom line.”

 

Last modified: August 13, 2014
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