By By BETTY MITCHELL GRAY
betty@wdnweb.com
Staff Writer
Saying he disagreed with the recommendation by the Beaufort Regional Health System’s Board of Commissioners to affiliate with Community Health Systems, Dr. Fredrick Teixeira said he is severing his relationship with BRHS.
“I’m not willing to work for CHS because I don’t think it’s the best thing for the patients I serve,” Teixeira said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
Teixeira, who has been with Pamlico Internal Medicine in Washington for almost 13 years, said he will remain in Washington and continue to see his patients as an independent physician.
Teixeira said he is severing his relationship with BRHS, “not my patients.”
“I wanted to make a statement,” Teixeira said. “Somebody’s got to take a stand.”
Sources within the local medical community, including some doctors, have said they were waiting for the BRHS board’s decision on its choice of potential partners before they decided whether to remain in Washington or seek other opportunities. 
Earlier this week, the BRHS board, with a 5-4 vote, recommended that the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners accept a 30-year lease offer from CHS, a public, for-profit health-care provider based in Franklin, Tenn., for $30 million. CHS is one of the leading operators of general acute-care hospitals. The organization’s affiliates own, operate or lease 126 hospitals in 29 states. Those hospitals house 19,400 licensed beds.
Ultimately, the commissioners will decide whether to accept or reject the BRHS board’s recommendation.
Before the BRHS board’s vote, the BRHS medical staff unanimously endorsed a lease/purchase offer made by Greenville-based University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina.
Teixeira said he would rescind his resignation if BRHS affiliates with UHS.
Teixeira is one of four doctors currently associated with Pamlico Internal Medicine, one of the medical practices owned by BRHS. A 1992 graduate of Emory University Medical School, Teixeira is board certified in internal medicine, according to information on the BRHS website.
A fifth doctor associated with Pamlico Internal Medicine, Tom Nicholson, retired at the end of 2010. 
Telephone calls to other members of the practice were not returned by the deadline for this edition of the Daily News.
The practice, which focuses on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of various adult illnesses and diseases such as arthritis, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, gastrointestinal problems, heart disease and diabetes, has been seeing patients for more than 50 years, according to previous news reports.
And while the doctors in the medical practice are affiliated with BRHS, the doctors in the practice own the practice’s building on Cowell Farm Road. They lease it to BRHS, Teixeira said.
That lease expires April 1, he said.
Pam Shadle, director of marketing and public relations for BRHS, confirmed that Teixeira had submitted his 90-day notice to BRHS Chief Executive Officer Susan Gerard.
Shadle said that resignation would not affect his ability to admit patients to Beaufort Regional Medical Center if he chose to do so.
Teixeira said that he is “definitely not going to send them” to a hospital managed by CHS.
Teixeira said once he severs his relationship with BRHS, he will, for the time being, not affiliate with any other medical center and continue to practice as an independent doctor.
“That’s the way it was done for years,” he said.