Are hospital financial records/owners public record?

[SublimeBirthGirl]

I'm 100% convinced that a local hospital is in the pocket of a formula company, at the very least. I want to find out who the shareholders are (if it's even a corporation; not sure how hospitals organize), who contributes money, etc. This hospital is huge and actively sabatoges breastfeeding relationships at every chance they get. I'm sure anyone with experience with birth in my area will know exactly which hospital I'm talking about. I want to research it, but I'm not sure where to start. I would like info to help my students make the informed decision, hopefully, to stay the heck away from there. I'm sick of my students being threatened, cajoled, and lied to.

[Kitten]

I don't live in your state so can't give you any specific advice about GA. A brief search showed me that GA has an open records law. If this hospital files taxes in GA you might be able to get the info you need by making a request to the state. Also, if the hospital is incorporated, or run as a non-profit, the state probably has information about that too. Sometimes government can be prickly to work with, though. In WI they can be very nasty about wanting to know EXACTLY what you are requesting, and the phrasing of your request affects what kind/how much info you get.

Here is a link to a watchdog group here in WI: http://www.wisfoic.org/

Obviously they won't be able to help you very much with GA law, but they might be able to direct you to a group in GA who can help you. The head of the organization is Bill Lueders. He is also an investigative reporter for a Madison weekly called the Isthmus. He has lots of experience dealing with getting government records to expose wrongdoing. If you click on the link to contact the group, you can send him an email and he might have suggestions for who can help you in GA.

[mwherbs]

is it a for-profit private hospital or public funding, or a mix like the Catholic hosptials? is it part of a corp that sells shares? public and corperations that trade stock will have findable info- either thorough their non-profit filing or through stock reports-- completely privately held- would be way more tricky to find out about-- it may be that they are not officially getting money but take all the extras and perks that are offered -- and what are the experiences of the nurses who work there? if they are all women who did not successfully breast feed or didn't even try- you are going to have a hard time changing policy---