An Elmore County Circuit Court judge on Thursday issued a temporary restraining order halting what a lawsuit alleges is a secret effort by Baptist Hospital of Montgomery and the Elmore County Economic Development Authority to undermine Elmore Community Hospital and allow Baptist to build a replacement hospital.
Judge Amanda Baxley granted the restraining order, noting that Elmore Community Hospital, which Ivy Creek operates, has an existing lease with the county that runs through at least 2030 and that Ivy Creek was likely to succeed on the merits of its case. Baxley ordered ECEDA and Elmore County Health Care Authority officials to terminate the request-for-proposals process.
Ivy Creek filed the lawsuit asking the court to require Elmore County officials to honor the existing lease, which prohibits the Elmore County Health Care Authority from owning or leasing a competing health care facility in the region.
A news release issued after the lawsuit was filed said Elmore Community Hospital remains fully operational and recently received more than $2 million in grant funding through the Alabama Rural Health Transformation Program, as Governor Kay Ivey announced Monday.
“We took over this hospital in July 2000 because it was days from closing,” Ivy Creek Healthcare CEO Michael D. Bruce said. “Twenty-six years later it is open, staffed, and caring for this county every day. We are not going anywhere. We asked the court to step in because a hospital cannot recruit physicians, sign vendors, or plan for its patients while a private group with no standing in our lease tells the market we are on our way out.”
The lawsuit states that ECEDA is a private group with no standing or authority to govern the hospital. Baxley appeared to agree in her order, writing that ECEDA is “interfering” in the business relationship between Ivy Creek and the Elmore County Health Care Authority.
Elmore County officials have long sought a larger, newer hospital or medical center to serve the county, and Ivy Creek said in its news release that it had worked with county officials in an effort to make that happen.
The company also participated in a 2024 health care study that recommended expanding services at Elmore Community Hospital and warned against partnering with a Montgomery-based company that would have little incentive to maintain a high quality of care in the neighboring county.
