Alive Hospice founders: Keep this renowned care provider a nonprofit | Opinion

Until a few weeks ago, Alive Hospice in Nashville was, for us, a dream come true.  In 1975, along with Dr. John Flexner, we founded what has become a highly respected Middle Tennessee agency caring for people coping with dying, death, and bereavement.

We held the first meeting of the organization in our living room on a cold December night in 1974. Our group included clergy, physicians, an intensive care nurse, social workers, a psychologist who worked with dying children, and a woman with metastatic malignant melanoma and her husband.  We were neophytes, creating our model of a hospice as we went along.

The name “Alive” has significance.  People are alive until they are not, and we wanted to give them respect, help them feel dignity, and provide them with as much comfort as possible until they are no longer living.  Dying and death are part of living a life.

More: Six reasons why Alive should remain a nonprofit hospice in Middle Tennessee | Opinion

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Alive was a national role model

We began our work in the second floor in an old house.  Over time, Alive moved up the real estate ladder to its current Midtown home.  We now have in-patient residences in Nashville and Murfreesboro, and Alive provides services in 12 Midstate counties. Much care takes place in homes where many people prefer to remain while dying.

Alive, in the early years, provided a role model for hospices throughout the nation.  It was the first hospice in the Southeast, and the second or third hospice in the country.  It was a leader in getting Medicare reimbursement passed by Congress in 1982.  It has remained an innovator, having, in 2017, launched the nation's first “tele-hospice” program, using iPads to connect patients at home with their medical team. With the support of the community, Alive has thrived!

In April we heard a rumor that Alive was for sale.  We called Alive’s CEO Kimberly Goessele, and she did not deny it. This was the beginning of a massive stone-walling by the CEO, the board chair Vicki Estrin, and the board of directors.  Since then, they have only spoken or written in carefully curated platitude.

We have, however, gleaned information from others.  We believe Alive is up for sale to a multi-billion-dollar health care company, rumored to be Amedisys.  A for-profit entity plans to buy our beloved not-for-profit hospice.

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We are demanding a stop to the sale

Everyone asks,  “Why?” and we have no answers. To the best of our knowledge, Alive is in a good financial position, and the community always has and continues to support the organization with time and money. Even if Alive had problems, they could be  addressed without selling the organization.  That’s why our rallying cry is “Keep Alive Alive.”

So, what are we doing to try and stop the sale?  A group of us, “The Keep Alive Alive Coalition,” has alerted the community to the downsides of a sale of this almost 50-year-old community jewel to a huge for-profit company.  We have billboards on a main street in Nashville. We have more than 5,000 names to date on a “Keep Alive Not-For Profit” online change.org petition. We continue to get broadcast, print and digital news coverage. Our Facebook group, “Keep Alive Alive” has more than 860 members.  We are exploring legal avenues.  We’re fighting a good fight!

We hope Alive won’t be sold.  And we and our group and the thousands of people in Middle Tennessee who have joined us will continue to do what we can to save Alive as a not-for-profit care provider for our community.  For we truly believe that a community can be judged by the way it treats its dying.

David Barton, MD, is a retired physician-psychiatrist, and Lynn Palmer Barton, LCSW, is a practicing therapist and mediator. They were awarded a lifetime achievement award in 2014 as Health Care Heroes by The Nashville Business Journal. Dr. Barton, MD, and John Flexner, MD (posthumous) were inducted into The Tennessee Health Care Hall of Fame, in 2019, in recognition of their founding of Alive Hospice.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Alive Hospice founders: Keep this renowned care provider a nonprofit