did you see the article over at Calnurse

Nurses Activism

Published

:sniff: :sniff: A CEO at Palomar Hospital in California just got fired. If you want proof that everything you suspected about the higher ups is true here is the smoking gun. Maybe Karen could post it.
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Specializes in PACU/Cardiac/Nrsg. Mgmt./M/S.

aw, c'mon...you dangled a carrot...lets hear it...

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Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

Board fires president of Palomar Pomerado

- San Diego Union Tribune 5/15/02

http://www.uniontrib.com/news/northcounty/20020515-9999_1mi15palo.html

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"Let's put it this way," Scofield said. "I have stated my concerns for three years."

Palomar Pomerado nurses are "stressed, understaffed, overworked, underappreciated and undervalued."

Though she voted with her six colleagues to hire Gruber in 1999, Scofield, who is a retired nursing assistant, said she was vocal about the district's relationship with its nursing staff, which in her estimation progressively deteriorated. >>

I find it amazing that a board member said that openly & allowed it be printed in the paper. When we got our CEO fired for similar reasons & an 18 month labor battle, our board allowed him to "resign", paid out the remaining 2 yrs on his contract, & wouldnt say a negative thing about him - so as not to harm his reputation and opportunities for future employment. Its about time somebody called a spade a spade. Bravo.

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He got them in the black by making life hell on earth for the nursing staff. Now the staff is unionizing. There is another article saying he is getting a huge severance settlement. Gags me.

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Specializes in CV-ICU.

Wonder how he cut their deficit when he pocketed all that money, hmmm?

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well, maybe he did it like our former CEO did - ours proclaimed we were in the red & on the verge of bankruptcy (nobody believed him). He then used this excuse to justify cutting 650 support staff, froze more than 50 vacant RN positions (he couldnt eliminate them because we are a union but he tried), took over control of hiring & refused to allow any hiring to be done, cut supplies, eliminated the nursing education dept, nurse administrators, & nurse managers. Gave the managers who were left 3 floors to manage when they used to have just one, eliminated the VP of Nursing position, demoted the DON position, and put the MD of each dept in charge of the nurses who worked there. And he ordered that everyone who didnt smile be disciplined to the max.

Basically he practically closed down the entire dept of nursing. Saved a lot of money by doing that because the nursing dept, being the largest dept, ate up about 40% of the operating budget. With no nursing dept left, some of the money saved by cutting pt care staff was put into bonuses for those managers & administrators who stayed below their budget. Those who didnt got fired. He published a book that included a whole blueprint for this kind of administrative strategy & gave all the depts a copy. (fair warning?). Every page was filled with stick people with either smiley faces or sad faces & walking towards exit doors, depending on the strategy being discussed. Talk about gall.

Anyway, just a few short months after we were supposedly "bankrupt", he closed down the streets around the hospital & threw the neighborhood a BBQ - including street festival entertainment - now proclaiming we were suddenly in the black - thanks to his superior executive skills! (and with all the money he saved by shutting down the nursing dept & cutting support staff to bare minimums - telling the remaining nurses to pick up the slack).

Then he had the audacity to flaunt it by hiring Staute of Liberty ferries to transport the hospitals high society to ELLIS ISLAND - which he had rented out for their annual spring ball!!! Can you imagine??? We were supposed to be in such dire straits & here he is celebrating with such extravagance as to rent out a national landmark and ferries for his next party! Funny behavior for Chicken Little announcing the sky was falling not so long before.

We tried to tell him we were a union & he couldnt just cut our dept out like that & we offered to help by negotiating solutions to getting over the financial crisis. He said he didnt believe in unions.

Well, he was promptly given an education on it, through 18 months of a very public RN union battle. The newspapers reported on it every week, including a surge in incidents occurring because of not having staff. The board read about what was happening to our pts every week in the newspapers. They were upset, not because of the pt care but because of their reputation but we told them we werent backing down - lives were at stake.

We won in the end & got everything reversed. Our nursing dept was re-established, manangers, VP, & DON positions reinstated & the RN positions unfrozen & recruited for. Everything back in its place & - surprise - we didnt go bankrupt.

We publically demanded that the board take control from this CEO & they did. Then they announced that they were "releasing" him from his contract. :) After we got him fired, he admitted that he didnt understand the union mentality that workers in this city have, didnt expect such a fierce response from them, & that "healthcare in NYC is a whole different animal", and then he went back to the South.

To this day even the docs & some board members who hired him to do exactly what he did talk about what a mistake they made & what a nightmare he was. BUT they would never say it in print like the board member in the article did.

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My guess is that he paid himself a big bonus for all of this and then got severance pay. Usually their bonuses alone could pay 10 nurses for many years.

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While the case of -jt's CEO is blatant, let's face facts folks! They all do stuff that is just this side of the law. I don't care if it is for profit or not for profit, they take money from one place and hide it in another. They cry bankruptcy when they are pocketing hundreds of thousands a year with tons of perks. They are no better than those Enron crooks! It makes me want to PUKE!!! Preferably all over THEM! The hospital Boards buy what these suits say hook, line and sinker. The staff of hospitals need to look past the charisma some of these people have and see them for what they are: RUTHLESS, profit oriented business people who couldn't give a rat's @ss about anyone but themselves! The CEO's say they weren't aware of the conditions we complain about. HELLO. THAT IS YOUR JOB TO KNOW!!!! Get out of the plush carpeted areas an see for yourself! Those below the CEO's are telling the CEO's what they want to hear to keep their 6 figure salary jobs! They don't want to know how bad it is.

I agree-jt. I'd love to know the real story behind this guy's firing. And how does a retired nurses aide get on a hospital board? She must have bucks from somewhere. That's how you get a seat here-BUY ONE!

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So they got rid of the rat and the problems got fixed. Maybe that is the key.

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