Doctors once again turned out for the board meeting of Haywood Regional Medical Center last week, and this time they were permitted to speak.

At the hospital meeting two weeks prior, doctors were silenced when attempting to voice concerns held by the medical community, prompting three doctors to walk out. A split on the hospital board emerged, with some in favor of letting doctors speak up at will during meetings and others wanting to corral public comments to a short window at the meeting’s outset.

The split largely followed lines of old and new board members — with five of each on the board. Generally speaking, the old guard still subscribes to the command-and-control style of running the hospital, while new board members are pushing for a more responsive and inclusive approach.

“I hate to hear there is a feeling of conflict between the new and the old,” Dr. Luis Munoz, a pathologist, said at the board meeting last week. “Personally, I think some of the old members are inept, ineffective and somewhat arrogant. I would like to see the new voices continue to demand answers, to continue to exert their influence in helping make the right decisions.”

Munoz’s comments met a round of applause from the audience, a standing room only crowd of 75. The heat was certainly on for the hospital board. The audience included three county commissioners — Mary Ann Enloe, Larry Ammons and Skeeter Curtis — as well as commissioner candidate Mark Swanger.

Following the meeting two weeks prior where doctors walked out, the long-time board members were reprimanded by County Commissioner Mary Ann Enloe, the media, the medical community and general public. Some called for hospital board members to step down if they were unwilling to adopt a new and open way of doing business.

Enloe was particularly perturbed that doctors weren’t being respected by at least some members of the hospital board. The community needs to hang on to its doctors at all costs, she said.

“They are not going to hang around and wait for the last wave to come over the bow of the ship,” Enloe said in an interview. “If we don’t have doctors and nurses on that hill where the brick and mortar is, we might as well just have a motel.”

Enloe hoped the medical staff would give the hospital board a chance to fix things, however.

“It is my hope and prayer that the doctors can quell their level of frustration just for a little while,” Enloe said.

Dr. George Brown, a family practitioner with Hazelwood Family Practice, also testified to the importance of physicians during the public comment period at the hospital board meeting last week.

“The physicians are an absolute necessity to have a hospital. It is not just a facility of steel, bricks and mortar,” Brown said. He added that the general public should also be brought into the fold.

“The biggest stakeholders are the taxpayers of the county — taxpayers that have passed four bond issues to get this hospital where it is now,” Brown said.

Brown called the previous board meeting “pretty much a disaster.” Brown differentiated between the old and new board members, however, pinning the old board members with the attitude problem.

The disrespectful comments of some board members have done damage to the hospital’s reputation — something doctors have been desperately trying to patch up, according to Brown.

“All practicing physicians in the county have been doing their best to create some positive public relations for the hospital,” Brown told the hospital board. Doctors spend half their time with patients these days talking about the hospital and trying to reassure them, Brown said.

Damage was done in particular by the comments of Jim Stevens and Bob Browning — Stevens who silenced the doctors and Browning who recently rebuffed county commissioners’ request to expand the hospital board with the comment “We’re in the driver’s seat.” Brown called the comment arrogant.

Browning was absent from last week’s meeting and Stevens didn’t say a word the entire time.

Board member Cliff Stovall said Haywood County is honored to have such a fine group of physicians. He said he felt privileged to attend a recent medical staff meeting, a regular gathering of all doctors practicing at the hospital. Stovall witnessed an amazing level of collaboration among doctors on ways to improve the care they provide.

“Even though we are up to our waist in alligators, the doctors had not forgotten their mission to treat people in this community,” Stovall said.