INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — In a surprising move, Hospital District trustees unanimously agreed last Thursday not to reappoint retired urologist Hugh McCrystal as their representative on the board of Indian River Medical Center, although McCrystal will apparently stay on the board anyway.
The Trustees will recommend that the hospital, on the district’s behalf, appoint Gerri McPherson Smith, a retired university leader and widow of the late Trustee Trevor Smith, to the board as one of its two representatives.
Decades of service by McCrystal, as both a Hospital District trustee and a hospital board member (whose name appears on the street bordering the hospital) have made him an iconic figure in Indian River County.
But in the last year and a half, his relationship with District trustees, elected by the taxpayers to direct tax dollars for indigent healthcare, has soured.
In past years, as a Hospital District trustee, McCrystal was known for criticizing hospital leaders over how the hospital was being run.
But in late 2013, several months after he left the Hospital District and became a hospital board member, McCrystal began to praise hospital leadership and criticize District trustees.
“His position (on the hospital board) became quite different from his position as a District trustee,” said District chairman Tom Spackman, a retired radiologist. “Some of us have been surprised at Dr. McCrystal’s disappointing antagonism toward the District.”
McCrystal did not respond to repeated calls from Vero News asking for comment.
At the Thursday District meeting, Trustee Alma Lee Loy voiced concern over the ouster of McCrystal because of his “lifetime of service to this board and to Indian River Medical Center, and his driving goal to help patients.”
But when Spackman proposed Gerri McPherson Smith as the District appointee to the hospital board, Loy called Smith “one of my protégés, whom I aided, pushed and encouraged over many years” and said she would be proud to support her.
With Loy on board, the decision to nominate Smith was unanimous.
However, it appears likely that hospital board members will appoint McCrystal to their board, themselves, when his appointment by the District expires at the end of December.
