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Voters decide to save Monroe County Hospital

1090 people voted to close the Monroe County Hospital, however, an overwhelming 2631 people voted in favor of saving it.

Voters in Monroe County voted whether or not to save the Monroe County Hospital.

To anyone who may have concerns about whether or not the county can financially support the hospital, hospital leaders already have a plan to alleviate those concerns.

They are going to shrink the hospital.

The plan is to keep the emergency room but to only have five to ten beds in the rest of the building. This will help reduce the amount of overhead to a more manageable level.

RELATED: Special Election results

1,090 people voted to close the Monroe County Hospital. However, an overwhelming 2,631 people voted in favor of saving it.

Tiffany Griggs being one of them, she says she is happy to be taxed 1 mill in order to save the hospital.

"Because we have to pay taxes, so make your tax money mean something. Put it towards your hospitals, put it towards your schools and bettering your communities," Griggs says.

Griggs says this hospital is critical, especially in emergency situations.

"And ten seconds is all the time you need to die, so we need our hospital here so we can save lives on a daily basis," she says.

Darren Pearce, is the chief administrator officer for Navicent Health, and he says the support from the community has been amazing, but it also puts a lot of pressure to make this micro-hospital concept work.

He says, "The ultimate goal is to eventually get as close to break even as possible, or maybe even make a profit one day if we are able to find the right niche and turn the culture around at this hospital to where people say, 'This is the place I want to go because I know the quality is good. I know it's going to be fast and it's right here at home.'"

Pearce says that this will not be a long, drawn-out plan. He says they are going to be hitting the ground running and getting these improvements done very quickly.

With the majority of residents wanting to give the hospital a second chance, this will give the commissioners something to think about as they cast their votes.

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