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By a unanimous vote, the Martin County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution declaring its intent to either sell or lease Martin General Hospital. The hospital has been closed since the middle of 2023, when Quorum Health Corporation, which leased the facility, filed for bankruptcy.

“The process of approving or denying the resolution is all required by state statutes if a city or county wants to sell or lease a property that it owns,” said Joe Ayers, chair of the Martin County Board of Commissioners. “It has taken a lot of legwork for us to just get to this point. Whether we lease or sell, our end goal is to get a provider in there to start servicing the citizens of our community once again.”

The next step in the process will be a public hearing, which has been scheduled for February 12 at the board’s next regularly scheduled meeting. Once all state requirements have been satisfied, bid packages will be sent out to interested parties. “We do have several that have expressed interest at this time,” said Ayers. “Once we start getting feedback from them, we will begin the review process, and the negotiations will begin on whether they are interested in leasing or buying. It is almost impossible to say how long that process will take. Ideally, it would be great to see some traction and direction in two or three months, but that is a wild guess at best.”

In the meantime, the hardships have been many as the county has tried to navigate the loss of the hospital. “I would say the number one hardship right now is that there is nowhere in Martin County for our rescue squads to take patients,” said Ayers. “They are having to take patients out of the county, which takes a lot of time and money. Martin County has totally overwhelmed the emergency room over in Bertie County. Most of the emergency calls come from the Williamston area, so the Bertie County emergency room is the closest. But patients have also been transported to Washington and Tarboro.”

The county entered into a 30-year lease of the building in 1999 with one health care provider. The lease has changed hands once or twice during that time, with Quorum Health Corporation being the latest. “The trustee handling the property couldn’t see any way for Quorum to get out of it financially, and finally gave the lease back to the county,” said Ayers. “Over the last 18 months, we have done the needed repairs and renovations to the building as required by state and federal guidelines, to reopen it.”