. . . a Greensboro blogger hurled nasty e-mails into my Inbox - after an ugly altercation on his blog - initiated when I (as opposed to blogger-king & proponent-of-online-civility, Ed Cone) called said blogger on the carpet for viciously attacking another Randolph County blogger/whistle-blower (also determinedly ignored/ridiculed by our local "journalists" . . . and fighting terminal cancer/just out of the hospital at the time).
During the exchange, the future cyber-stalker made some profoundly un-informed (stupid, when you get right down to it) statements about the healthy state of whistle-blower protection in this country.
I'm on break right now - still trying to decide/work out how I'm going to deal with the state and Federal agencies that let Steven Eblin and Bob Morrison (senior executives at Randolph Hospital) lie/cheat/steal/destroy my hometown dream. But a story on MSN caught my eye this evening, and I just wanted to offer my opinion that . . .
In addition to being a bully and a coward, Jeff Martin (aka "Fecund Stench") is a blithering idiot.
There. I feel better now.
For the benefit of Roch Smith, Jr. (Greensboro We 101), I'm not taking comments on this post because (1) I'm not posting regularly and therefore not inclined to moderate them, and (2) I don't give a rat's tail what you think.
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Saturday, March 03, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Steve Eblin Named CEO of Randolph Hospital . . . Just So We're Clear On Where Dr. Johnson Stands
Just this morning, someone asked me if I had heard anything new about "the search" for the new CEO of Randolph Hospital (in the wake of Bob Morrison's departure). And I told them that, while I had not heard anything, I had no doubt whatsoever that the "search" was a ruse, and that Steven E. Eblin, Randolph's longtime VP of Corporate Planning & Development, and President of Randolph Medical Associates . . . the man who recruited me home to Asheboro . . . then broke every promise he ever made to me . . . and then fired me for saving a critically-ill newborn baby's life . . . would get the job.
Now, what happened to me happened back in the heady, high-flying, non-profiteering days of Bill & Hillary's village . . . and on Bob Morrison's watch as Randolph's CEO. There can be no argument/doubt that the buck stopped at Morrison's desk. And I've hammered him hard on this blog.
But make no mistake, the malevolent architect of what my hometown hospital did to me was Steven E. Eblin.
And today, my former boss got his reward for being a "world-class" (one of his favorite marketing words) corporate jackass (much like Blogsboro's leading faux-journalist. Edward Cone-of-the-Cones got his for turning a deliberately deaf ear to my story). Today, it was announced that Steven Eblin has been named CEO of Randolph Hospital, effective March 1.
Be assured dear readers, that while there may have been 140 applicants for the job, there was NO "search". That's flat out laughable.
This was a fixed game. The gang-of-yes-men on Randolph Hospital's morally-bankrupt and criminally-clueless Board-of-Directors (the "search" committee included Mike Miller - the man whose financial "genius" brought down First National Bank . . . and Robert Dough - longtime partner to Mick Irwin, the wannabe neonatologist I "rescued" from his own arrogance and clinical ineptitude on that fateful night fourteen years ago) never intended to give anyone else but Eblin the job . . . EVEN with a Titanic-sized briefcase of ugly online baggage nailed to his backside.
And of course, this is the same mill-town Board of Directors that has stood by winking and nodding . . . and smirking at "lesser" beings . . . while the over-hyped "team" of Morrison and Eblin bullied & professionally-terrorized local doctors, monopolized local resources to their own ends, manipulated and undermined independent practices/institutions, turned a blind eye to the plight of Randolph County's mentally-ill (later attempting to blame someone else for their lack of vision), and made a mockery of "non-profit" care for Asheboro's poor.
It's all about corporate planning and development, baby.
These two "world-class" jerks stand as shining examples of what hospitals should NOT DO to doctors and nurses and local competitors in the name of "independence" and self-preservation. And they've made this hospital one of the laughing-stocks of the state.
But you won't read that in the Courier Tribune's fawning article.
You WILL read that Bob & Steve built a cancer center Asheboro didn't really need (sorry Buzzy, your family's money would have been much better spent on something else). Cancer was "cool" you see (the expensive consultants told them so) and a money machine that would shore up the incentives and bonuses.
Crazy people (as my good pal, Buzz Armfield tells me, I should embrace the "crazy" and display it in my living room like a proper Steel Magnolia) and poor folk aren't.
It's some record. And from a business standpoint . . . indeed from just about ANY standpoint . . . THIS DECISION IS INSANE.
For if Randolph Hospital had truly wanted to show the world that it was ready for a fresh start and real change, far from being the leading candidate for Bob Morrison's chair, Eblin would/should have swept out with Bob's trash.
Of course, if medical or corporate ethics meant anything in Asheboro, both of them would have been fired back in 2003 for unethical/amoral/illegal conduct unbecoming the corporate officers of a North Carolina "non-profit" hospital.
That might have saved the hospital some money that could have then been spent on patient care.
But this is Asheboro, a land where a well-named LOSER, whose greed and stupidity decimated a once rock-solid local bank, can, with a wink and a nod, become a university president.
Predictably, the useless/bought-and-paid-for lap-dogs at the Courier Tribune are going to drool and slobber over Eblin's assumption of the throne. But equally predictably, this doctor will not.
So allow me, on the occasion of this glorious announcement, to re-state the FACT that Steven E. Eblin is a LIAR. He did it under Oath - in a Court proceeding . . . to get out of A MESS HE MADE on the cheap . . . and despite what Garland Yates might "believe", in North Carolina that makes Steve guilty of PERJURY. It's a felony. With NO STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS.
Indeed, "oily" is the adjective I've heard used most often to describe Mr. Eblin in the "wrong" local circles that do not included the inbred/elite mill-town likes of Sam Cranford, Mac Pugh and Sam Rankin.
Lest anyone begrudge me my opinion about what passes for stewardship of an institution supported by taxpayer dollars (the FACT that he's a LIAR . . . and I have the proof in black and white . . . is the reason Mr. Eblin/his gang-of-mill-town-goons won't be suing me - again - for expressing it), I'll remind the Housecalls' reader that fourteen years ago, it was MUCH MORE IMPORTANT for Mr. Eblin to cover up medical malfeasance (malfeasance he and his team of doe-eyed sycophants had actually helped orchestrate with false marketing) than it was to do right by the homegrown-Pediatrician-who-did right-by-a-newborn-whose-life-was-in-danger and play by the rules . . . rules that the rest of us (well, the rest of us who do not aspire to be "right people" in Asheboro) live by and rely upon . . . rules that EVERY OVERSIGHT AGENCY IN THIS STATE/COUNTRY say are the STANDARD OF CARE everywhere.
Everywhere, apparently, except Asheboro, North Carolina.
If there are any Mommies and Daddies in Asheboro out there reading this . . . thinking about putting your trust in Randolph Hospital . . . and your child's life in their hands . . . just know that if Dr. Mary Johnson had done what Randolph Hospital's brand-new CEO wanted me to do that night . . . if I had abided by what his idiot-Practice-Director PUT IN WRITING as an EXPECTATION upon which my continued employment DEPENDED all because "right person", Cheryl Freeman, didn't get what she wanted ) . . . I would have hung up on the terrified charge nurse and rolled over/gone back to sleep.
I would have not given a second thought to the boatload of medical ugly going down in Randolph Hospital's nursery.
I would not have cared if that desperately-sick newborn baby girl lived or died.
And no matter if that child had lived or died, I would have kept my mouth shut the next day. No complaint to hospital peer review . . . or the N.C. Medical Board . . . or (much later) to then-USDHHS Secretary Donna Shalala . . . would have ever been filed. I would have been a good little doctor - very grateful to be going-along-to-get-along, and standing meekly along side the deaf, dumb and blind likes of Jim Kinlaw and Robert Dough.
And I'd be a "right person" in Asheboro now. Going to all the "right" parties. Getting my picture taken for "Thrive Magazine". The darling of the big fish in the small fetid pond.
Trouble is, I'd also be the sorry excuse for a human being that Steven Eblin is.
No heart. No soul.
Too bad for us "ordinary" folk trying to practice good medicine - or just get decent medical care, that the oversight agencies that are supposed to protect us from corporate scum like Eblin (JCAHO, DHHS, the Medical Board, the State Bar, the IRS, the American Board of Pediatrics) NEVER ENFORCE their own rules.
It's all smoke and mirrors. Dogs and ponies.
Care you most certainly cannot trust.
Just to review (for those new to this blog - or the geuninely ignorant - or just terminally stupid in our local blogosphere), my still white-hot-burning "beef" remains that, as a newly-minted Pediatrician, I came HOME, and for almost three years, GAVE EVERYTHING I HAD to Randolph Hospital . . . completing a public service obligation to "serve the underserved" . . . providing 24-7 Pediatric & Neonatal Critical Care back-up call to anyone who asked for it . . . doing child-abuse exams/testifying in Court (for the peanuts that the state threw) . . . building a Pediatric practice from nothing (only to see it all just given to someone else) . . . cleaning up other physician's messes.
That translated to ZERO personal life. But it was okay, because I was working towards a brighter future - and my own practice - once my obligation to the government was met.
But what did this home-grown doctor (as a "young professional" the gurus over at Economic Development say they covet so much) get for her dedication, hard work and service to the good ole hometown?
Why a knife in the back from Mr. Eblin after I blew the whistle on bad care. Everything I had worked for turned to ashes under a cloud of rumor and innuendo, slander and libel. Years spent living like a pauper in hotels and other people's houses . . . black-balled locally . . . working far from home as I fought off merciless legal intimidation (in what amounted to a personal vendetta funded by the public's dime). Opportunities to have my own family and children lost in the time it took to fight back.
And then, when it was all supposed to be over, and my cause vindicated, the dream was finally completely destroyed by perjury and fraud.
Top it all off with the practiced, methodical indifference demonstrated by the oh-so-noble leaders, law enforcement officers and "journalists" of our community-drenched-in-small-town-values, and you've got just another day for anyone who isn't "right people" in Asheboro.
Law and order under Garland Yate's jurisdiction is a game of "Who's who". For in "Mayberry" you can snort coke all day long . . . or beat/cheat-on your wife & children . . . or lie/cheat/steal from your neighbors . . . as long as you have a good name or a friend in the right place. Yes indeed, in Asheboro, Garland's dream team will (notice I said "will", not "can") not even properly prosecute an out-of-town cyber-stalker who boasted of his crimes online.
Better to throw the doctor whose held up your office to ridicule under the bus . . . AGAIN.
And when it comes to what passes for jounalism in Piedmont, North Carolina, in the books of the Ed Cones and John Robinsons and Ray Criscoes and Annette Jordans of this world, this story . . . my story . . . is "not relevant" to why private practice physicians are dying on the vine. Better to jump on the Obama train . . . which was originally the Clinton train . . . and then the Edwards train . . . and let the government turn all the white coats into subservient drones . . . subservient to the likes of Steven Eblin.
Move on along folks. Nothing in Asheboro/Greensboro to see. And don't you worry, sooner of later Cone Hospital (former employer of Mick Irwin - and the institution for which my career was sacrificed) can swoop down and buy it all up.
So I'd say that the rest of the 140 applicants for Bob Morrison's rotten seat don't know how lucky they are to steer clear of the "dying" town (I didn't say it, people, Forbes Magazine did) with a train wreck for a hospital.
And make NO MISTAKE, boys and girls, in this election year, where last night, this former-public-servant-badly-burned-in-said-service was forced to listen to yet another President of the United States give yet another lame lecture from his bully-pulpit on economic fairness and the government's ability to restore the dying American Dream (when, based on my horrific experience working for Mr. Eblin, right under a disinterested government's nose, I could write that book), I am SO NOT DONE with Randolph Hospital . . . or the state and Federal "oversight" agencies that let a good doctor swing.
This afternoon, I got all the motivation I ever needed to keep fighting what has always been A GOOD FIGHT.
Congratulations, Mr. Eblin. I look forward to making your tenure memorable. And I'll keep praying for a hostile take-over . . . by someone other than the Cone Healthcare System.
On that note and to that end, I'm back on blogging break.
Now, what happened to me happened back in the heady, high-flying, non-profiteering days of Bill & Hillary's village . . . and on Bob Morrison's watch as Randolph's CEO. There can be no argument/doubt that the buck stopped at Morrison's desk. And I've hammered him hard on this blog.
But make no mistake, the malevolent architect of what my hometown hospital did to me was Steven E. Eblin.
And today, my former boss got his reward for being a "world-class" (one of his favorite marketing words) corporate jackass (much like Blogsboro's leading faux-journalist. Edward Cone-of-the-Cones got his for turning a deliberately deaf ear to my story). Today, it was announced that Steven Eblin has been named CEO of Randolph Hospital, effective March 1.
Be assured dear readers, that while there may have been 140 applicants for the job, there was NO "search". That's flat out laughable.
This was a fixed game. The gang-of-yes-men on Randolph Hospital's morally-bankrupt and criminally-clueless Board-of-Directors (the "search" committee included Mike Miller - the man whose financial "genius" brought down First National Bank . . . and Robert Dough - longtime partner to Mick Irwin, the wannabe neonatologist I "rescued" from his own arrogance and clinical ineptitude on that fateful night fourteen years ago) never intended to give anyone else but Eblin the job . . . EVEN with a Titanic-sized briefcase of ugly online baggage nailed to his backside.
And of course, this is the same mill-town Board of Directors that has stood by winking and nodding . . . and smirking at "lesser" beings . . . while the over-hyped "team" of Morrison and Eblin bullied & professionally-terrorized local doctors, monopolized local resources to their own ends, manipulated and undermined independent practices/institutions, turned a blind eye to the plight of Randolph County's mentally-ill (later attempting to blame someone else for their lack of vision), and made a mockery of "non-profit" care for Asheboro's poor.
It's all about corporate planning and development, baby.
These two "world-class" jerks stand as shining examples of what hospitals should NOT DO to doctors and nurses and local competitors in the name of "independence" and self-preservation. And they've made this hospital one of the laughing-stocks of the state.
But you won't read that in the Courier Tribune's fawning article.
You WILL read that Bob & Steve built a cancer center Asheboro didn't really need (sorry Buzzy, your family's money would have been much better spent on something else). Cancer was "cool" you see (the expensive consultants told them so) and a money machine that would shore up the incentives and bonuses.
Crazy people (as my good pal, Buzz Armfield tells me, I should embrace the "crazy" and display it in my living room like a proper Steel Magnolia) and poor folk aren't.
It's some record. And from a business standpoint . . . indeed from just about ANY standpoint . . . THIS DECISION IS INSANE.
For if Randolph Hospital had truly wanted to show the world that it was ready for a fresh start and real change, far from being the leading candidate for Bob Morrison's chair, Eblin would/should have swept out with Bob's trash.
Of course, if medical or corporate ethics meant anything in Asheboro, both of them would have been fired back in 2003 for unethical/amoral/illegal conduct unbecoming the corporate officers of a North Carolina "non-profit" hospital.
That might have saved the hospital some money that could have then been spent on patient care.
But this is Asheboro, a land where a well-named LOSER, whose greed and stupidity decimated a once rock-solid local bank, can, with a wink and a nod, become a university president.
Predictably, the useless/bought-and-paid-for lap-dogs at the Courier Tribune are going to drool and slobber over Eblin's assumption of the throne. But equally predictably, this doctor will not.
So allow me, on the occasion of this glorious announcement, to re-state the FACT that Steven E. Eblin is a LIAR. He did it under Oath - in a Court proceeding . . . to get out of A MESS HE MADE on the cheap . . . and despite what Garland Yates might "believe", in North Carolina that makes Steve guilty of PERJURY. It's a felony. With NO STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS.
Indeed, "oily" is the adjective I've heard used most often to describe Mr. Eblin in the "wrong" local circles that do not included the inbred/elite mill-town likes of Sam Cranford, Mac Pugh and Sam Rankin.
Lest anyone begrudge me my opinion about what passes for stewardship of an institution supported by taxpayer dollars (the FACT that he's a LIAR . . . and I have the proof in black and white . . . is the reason Mr. Eblin/his gang-of-mill-town-goons won't be suing me - again - for expressing it), I'll remind the Housecalls' reader that fourteen years ago, it was MUCH MORE IMPORTANT for Mr. Eblin to cover up medical malfeasance (malfeasance he and his team of doe-eyed sycophants had actually helped orchestrate with false marketing) than it was to do right by the homegrown-Pediatrician-who-did right-by-a-newborn-whose-life-was-in-danger and play by the rules . . . rules that the rest of us (well, the rest of us who do not aspire to be "right people" in Asheboro) live by and rely upon . . . rules that EVERY OVERSIGHT AGENCY IN THIS STATE/COUNTRY say are the STANDARD OF CARE everywhere.
Everywhere, apparently, except Asheboro, North Carolina.
If there are any Mommies and Daddies in Asheboro out there reading this . . . thinking about putting your trust in Randolph Hospital . . . and your child's life in their hands . . . just know that if Dr. Mary Johnson had done what Randolph Hospital's brand-new CEO wanted me to do that night . . . if I had abided by what his idiot-Practice-Director PUT IN WRITING as an EXPECTATION upon which my continued employment DEPENDED all because "right person", Cheryl Freeman, didn't get what she wanted ) . . . I would have hung up on the terrified charge nurse and rolled over/gone back to sleep.
I would have not given a second thought to the boatload of medical ugly going down in Randolph Hospital's nursery.
I would not have cared if that desperately-sick newborn baby girl lived or died.
And no matter if that child had lived or died, I would have kept my mouth shut the next day. No complaint to hospital peer review . . . or the N.C. Medical Board . . . or (much later) to then-USDHHS Secretary Donna Shalala . . . would have ever been filed. I would have been a good little doctor - very grateful to be going-along-to-get-along, and standing meekly along side the deaf, dumb and blind likes of Jim Kinlaw and Robert Dough.
And I'd be a "right person" in Asheboro now. Going to all the "right" parties. Getting my picture taken for "Thrive Magazine". The darling of the big fish in the small fetid pond.
Trouble is, I'd also be the sorry excuse for a human being that Steven Eblin is.
No heart. No soul.
Too bad for us "ordinary" folk trying to practice good medicine - or just get decent medical care, that the oversight agencies that are supposed to protect us from corporate scum like Eblin (JCAHO, DHHS, the Medical Board, the State Bar, the IRS, the American Board of Pediatrics) NEVER ENFORCE their own rules.
It's all smoke and mirrors. Dogs and ponies.
Care you most certainly cannot trust.
Just to review (for those new to this blog - or the geuninely ignorant - or just terminally stupid in our local blogosphere), my still white-hot-burning "beef" remains that, as a newly-minted Pediatrician, I came HOME, and for almost three years, GAVE EVERYTHING I HAD to Randolph Hospital . . . completing a public service obligation to "serve the underserved" . . . providing 24-7 Pediatric & Neonatal Critical Care back-up call to anyone who asked for it . . . doing child-abuse exams/testifying in Court (for the peanuts that the state threw) . . . building a Pediatric practice from nothing (only to see it all just given to someone else) . . . cleaning up other physician's messes.
That translated to ZERO personal life. But it was okay, because I was working towards a brighter future - and my own practice - once my obligation to the government was met.
But what did this home-grown doctor (as a "young professional" the gurus over at Economic Development say they covet so much) get for her dedication, hard work and service to the good ole hometown?
Why a knife in the back from Mr. Eblin after I blew the whistle on bad care. Everything I had worked for turned to ashes under a cloud of rumor and innuendo, slander and libel. Years spent living like a pauper in hotels and other people's houses . . . black-balled locally . . . working far from home as I fought off merciless legal intimidation (in what amounted to a personal vendetta funded by the public's dime). Opportunities to have my own family and children lost in the time it took to fight back.
And then, when it was all supposed to be over, and my cause vindicated, the dream was finally completely destroyed by perjury and fraud.
Top it all off with the practiced, methodical indifference demonstrated by the oh-so-noble leaders, law enforcement officers and "journalists" of our community-drenched-in-small-town-values, and you've got just another day for anyone who isn't "right people" in Asheboro.
Law and order under Garland Yate's jurisdiction is a game of "Who's who". For in "Mayberry" you can snort coke all day long . . . or beat/cheat-on your wife & children . . . or lie/cheat/steal from your neighbors . . . as long as you have a good name or a friend in the right place. Yes indeed, in Asheboro, Garland's dream team will (notice I said "will", not "can") not even properly prosecute an out-of-town cyber-stalker who boasted of his crimes online.
Better to throw the doctor whose held up your office to ridicule under the bus . . . AGAIN.
And when it comes to what passes for jounalism in Piedmont, North Carolina, in the books of the Ed Cones and John Robinsons and Ray Criscoes and Annette Jordans of this world, this story . . . my story . . . is "not relevant" to why private practice physicians are dying on the vine. Better to jump on the Obama train . . . which was originally the Clinton train . . . and then the Edwards train . . . and let the government turn all the white coats into subservient drones . . . subservient to the likes of Steven Eblin.
Move on along folks. Nothing in Asheboro/Greensboro to see. And don't you worry, sooner of later Cone Hospital (former employer of Mick Irwin - and the institution for which my career was sacrificed) can swoop down and buy it all up.
So I'd say that the rest of the 140 applicants for Bob Morrison's rotten seat don't know how lucky they are to steer clear of the "dying" town (I didn't say it, people, Forbes Magazine did) with a train wreck for a hospital.
And make NO MISTAKE, boys and girls, in this election year, where last night, this former-public-servant-badly-burned-in-said-service was forced to listen to yet another President of the United States give yet another lame lecture from his bully-pulpit on economic fairness and the government's ability to restore the dying American Dream (when, based on my horrific experience working for Mr. Eblin, right under a disinterested government's nose, I could write that book), I am SO NOT DONE with Randolph Hospital . . . or the state and Federal "oversight" agencies that let a good doctor swing.
This afternoon, I got all the motivation I ever needed to keep fighting what has always been A GOOD FIGHT.
Congratulations, Mr. Eblin. I look forward to making your tenure memorable. And I'll keep praying for a hostile take-over . . . by someone other than the Cone Healthcare System.
On that note and to that end, I'm back on blogging break.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Sunday, December 25, 2011
A Christmas Thought: Feed The Birds
There was a very good opinion piece on CNN this Christmas Eve morning entitiled, "When Bedford Falls Becomes Pottersville". Over the years, I've watched my hometown slowly turn into Pottersville and I don't like it.
I have it on very good authority that "Feed the Birds", from 1964's "Mary Poppins" was Walt Disney's favorite song/sequence out of all of the Disney films. It's also mine.
It's about charity and doing the right thing, even when charity and doing the right thing isn't easy - giving even when you don't have much yourself . . . acting for good even when it hurts.
It's not a bad message to ponder at Christmas. Alas, it's also a message that Asheboro's "non-profit" medical sector totally did not get (leaving so many of the people it was supposed to serve behind in the mill town cold) . . . a message I intend to keep hammering home on this blog . . . and (shortly, I hope) in other venues . . . until Randolph Hospital, the people running it - and the "public servants" winking and nodding at all-that's-been-done-under-their-noses-in-charity's-name-to-pervert-charity clean up their act and are held accountable.
Merry Christmas. Thanks to everyone who reads this blog. And Happy New Year.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
The Last Full Measure Of Service: What Makes A Man Or Woman "Right" Enough For The Courier Tribune?
Note to Readers: This Post Has Been Updated.
I had planned to let my post on the disintegration of the Merce Clinic (which speaks volumes about Randolph Hospital CEO, Bob Morrison's, true legacy . . . and the abject failure of "non-profit" medicine in Asheboro) stand for a while, and return to break. But then . . .
Lance Corporal Jacob Levy, a native of Ramseur, graduate of Eastern Randolph High School, and of Lumbee Indian descent, was shot in the head while on patrol in Afghanistan on Wednesday. He has done prior combat tours there - and in Pakistan - and had volunteered to go back. The Marine was stabilized in the field, and has been on life support in Germany since that time.
He serves with the son of my good friend, Buzz Armfield. The Marine Moms and Dads have been rallying for days. As of this writing, the news is not good.
Both Fox 8 and the N&R have had stories asking for prayer.
But Lance Corporal Levy's "hometown" newspaper has not uttered a peep - at least not online.
Where do we find these young men? At moments like these, I often reflect upon words of Lincoln . . . words (from the Gettysburg address) that I memorized as a child and have not forgotten . . . indeed, words that I have tried to live my life (in a different kind of service) to honor:
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
May God bless and comfort the family of Lance Corporal Jacob Levy during this horrible/heart-breaking time.
Semper Fi.
Sunday Morning Update:
We now have official word that Jacob Levy passed away last night at 8:50 PM. He was 21 and an organ donor (as his Stepfather said, "selfless to the end").
I am citing the News & Record, because as of my last online check (about an hour ago - at which point I resolved not to go back), the Courier Tribune had yet to post the story online.
As background to my earlier posting and what I’m about to say here, Jacob’s Mother had called Buzz Armfield (as noted above, also a Marine parent – whose stepson served with Jacob) from Germany on Saturday morning, with the news that further treatment for his head wound was deemed futile by Jacob’s doctors, and he would shortly be taken off life support.
We expected him to be gone by the end of the day.
Buzz, in turn, called me and asked me to put up a post about Jacob on Housecalls (I was running late for rounds yesterday, but decided to take the extra time and do it) . . . because, while we had read stories online at Fox 8 and WGHP and even the Greensboro N&R, we had not seen anything online at the Courier Tribune (Buzz lives in Jamestown and does not take the Courier, and I decided long ago to spare innocent trees an inglorious end). Buzz could not understand the omission, and wanted to scream Jacob’s sacrifice to the rafters.
“Jacob deserves better. The world should know.”, he said.
Buzz was so upset about it, that he subsequently sent a scathing e-mail to both the Courier and the President of its “parent company” (Stevens Media) in Nevada – asking why the story was not to be found on the Courier’s website.
Since she's spent so much time pretending that "Housecalls" (and I) do not exist, we were both very surprised when Courier Diva, Annette Jordan, sent Buzz an e-mail yesterday afternoon. This was her "terse" (as described by Buzz - I would use another descriptive term) response:
“The story ran in Friday’s paper on the front page. Sorry, you missed it.”
My response to Annette now, withheld until news of Jacob's death was officially announced, will be equally terse . . . for I am as disgusted as I have ever been with my "hometown" newspaper.
Dear sweet, Annette-of-the-small-town-values, Buzz “missed” it, and I “missed” it, and a half-dozen other people who do not pay for the privilege of being kept in the dark by your useless suck-up-to-the-right-people-rah-rah-protesting-too-much newspaper “missed” it, BECAUSE YOU DID NOT PUT THE STORY ONLINE.
And it’s the ONE story you’ve had all weekend that should have been easy to find and be read by every resident of Randolph County . . . online or off - no matter if they have a subscription or not.
For you see, Annette, it’s not about the money you might make drawing a few more gullible subscribers in. It’s not about who is first (Jacob should be), exclusivity, or petty oneupmanship between local competitors.
There’s just NO folksy spin that you can put on this story . . . or any way to dress it up . . . that justified keeping it behind a pay-wall . . . or offering it only to those who read get the hard copy to read all of your not-so-fine print. There’s just NO excuse.
And/so, Buzz Armfield, parent of a Marine, is absolutely right. Lance Corporal Jacob Levy deserved better from his hometown paper. He sacrificed his life to preserve and protect the America’s highest ideals and opportunities.
Now, Annette, just so we’re clear, this post was not designed to use Jacob’s death as a weapon in my (or anyone else’s) war with the Courier Tribune (besides, it’s been a very one-sided war for a very long time - because you-all have held all the cards and played them in all the tightly-knit "right" circles, very close to the vest).
It went up in response to a grieving man’s plea that the sacrifice of his son’s fallen comrade-in-arms . . . his last full measure of devotion . . . not be brushed-off or easily forgotten.
But, as someone who believes in those ideals as Jacob did (and did my best to live them in a-different-kind-of service-to-my-country), if I don’t know anything else, I KNOW that Jacob Levy did not die to preserve the kind of “journalism” practiced by the Courier Tribune over the last 15-20 years.
As I alluded earlier using the immortal words of a martyred President, I KNOW in my bones that this young man’s sacrifice REQUIRES much more of the Courier Tribune than you and your “team” have delivered over the last decade or so . . . ignoring stories that don’t reflect well on the “right people”( who put Asheboro on life support in the first place) . . fawning all over Mike Miller while Community One failed . . . winking and nodding while our “non-profit” hospital pulled the strings and monopolized the resources that ultimately left Bob Morrison a rich man and the poorest in our community out in the cold . . . playing citizen against citizen for money (ala the alcohol and annexation wars) . . . turning a deaf ear as good-people-done-very-wrong PLEADED for your help in speaking truth to power . . . flat out pretending that certain people and situations did not exist . . . and now apparently thinking that elitism and racism have a place in marketing your latest offerings (clearly not realizing that this kind of approach to life and business has not already factored heavily into the “death” of our town).
NOTHING IS GOING TO "THRIVE" HERE UNTIL YOU CHANGE YOUR WAYS!!!
Now, Buzz was reluctant for me to post this response to your (insert unprintables) e-mail. He is tired and heartbroken, and wants his son's friend to now rest in peace. So do I.
But I told my friend this morning that if I know anything about Jacob Levy - from the things Buzz has shared - and the tributes and stories I've read online (everywhere, that is, except your newspaper), I know that Jacob Levy would tell him not to be afraid . . . to stand tall and proud . . . and (most of all) not to run from a fight you believe in.
I believe in this fight. ALL of us in and from Randolph County deserve better.
Where do we find these young men and women? We find them in places like Ramseur and Asheboro. And we find them, I think, IN SPITE OF places like Asheboro and institutions like the Courier Tribune.
You’ve danced with Asheboro’s self-appointed “stars” for a long time, Annette. But I’ve got NEWS for you, lady . . .
. . . there are Lights that will shine far brighter in our skies tonight.
And the Star known as "Phoenix" puts you/the Courier Tribune to shame.
My sincere condolences to Jacob's family. My thanks for his service and sacrifice.
Semper Fi.
I had planned to let my post on the disintegration of the Merce Clinic (which speaks volumes about Randolph Hospital CEO, Bob Morrison's, true legacy . . . and the abject failure of "non-profit" medicine in Asheboro) stand for a while, and return to break. But then . . .
Lance Corporal Jacob Levy, a native of Ramseur, graduate of Eastern Randolph High School, and of Lumbee Indian descent, was shot in the head while on patrol in Afghanistan on Wednesday. He has done prior combat tours there - and in Pakistan - and had volunteered to go back. The Marine was stabilized in the field, and has been on life support in Germany since that time.
He serves with the son of my good friend, Buzz Armfield. The Marine Moms and Dads have been rallying for days. As of this writing, the news is not good.
Both Fox 8 and the N&R have had stories asking for prayer.
But Lance Corporal Levy's "hometown" newspaper has not uttered a peep - at least not online.
Where do we find these young men? At moments like these, I often reflect upon words of Lincoln . . . words (from the Gettysburg address) that I memorized as a child and have not forgotten . . . indeed, words that I have tried to live my life (in a different kind of service) to honor:
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
May God bless and comfort the family of Lance Corporal Jacob Levy during this horrible/heart-breaking time.
Semper Fi.
Sunday Morning Update:
We now have official word that Jacob Levy passed away last night at 8:50 PM. He was 21 and an organ donor (as his Stepfather said, "selfless to the end").
I am citing the News & Record, because as of my last online check (about an hour ago - at which point I resolved not to go back), the Courier Tribune had yet to post the story online.
As background to my earlier posting and what I’m about to say here, Jacob’s Mother had called Buzz Armfield (as noted above, also a Marine parent – whose stepson served with Jacob) from Germany on Saturday morning, with the news that further treatment for his head wound was deemed futile by Jacob’s doctors, and he would shortly be taken off life support.
We expected him to be gone by the end of the day.
Buzz, in turn, called me and asked me to put up a post about Jacob on Housecalls (I was running late for rounds yesterday, but decided to take the extra time and do it) . . . because, while we had read stories online at Fox 8 and WGHP and even the Greensboro N&R, we had not seen anything online at the Courier Tribune (Buzz lives in Jamestown and does not take the Courier, and I decided long ago to spare innocent trees an inglorious end). Buzz could not understand the omission, and wanted to scream Jacob’s sacrifice to the rafters.
“Jacob deserves better. The world should know.”, he said.
Buzz was so upset about it, that he subsequently sent a scathing e-mail to both the Courier and the President of its “parent company” (Stevens Media) in Nevada – asking why the story was not to be found on the Courier’s website.
Since she's spent so much time pretending that "Housecalls" (and I) do not exist, we were both very surprised when Courier Diva, Annette Jordan, sent Buzz an e-mail yesterday afternoon. This was her "terse" (as described by Buzz - I would use another descriptive term) response:
“The story ran in Friday’s paper on the front page. Sorry, you missed it.”
My response to Annette now, withheld until news of Jacob's death was officially announced, will be equally terse . . . for I am as disgusted as I have ever been with my "hometown" newspaper.
Dear sweet, Annette-of-the-small-town-values, Buzz “missed” it, and I “missed” it, and a half-dozen other people who do not pay for the privilege of being kept in the dark by your useless suck-up-to-the-right-people-rah-rah-protesting-too-much newspaper “missed” it, BECAUSE YOU DID NOT PUT THE STORY ONLINE.
And it’s the ONE story you’ve had all weekend that should have been easy to find and be read by every resident of Randolph County . . . online or off - no matter if they have a subscription or not.
For you see, Annette, it’s not about the money you might make drawing a few more gullible subscribers in. It’s not about who is first (Jacob should be), exclusivity, or petty oneupmanship between local competitors.
There’s just NO folksy spin that you can put on this story . . . or any way to dress it up . . . that justified keeping it behind a pay-wall . . . or offering it only to those who read get the hard copy to read all of your not-so-fine print. There’s just NO excuse.
And/so, Buzz Armfield, parent of a Marine, is absolutely right. Lance Corporal Jacob Levy deserved better from his hometown paper. He sacrificed his life to preserve and protect the America’s highest ideals and opportunities.
Now, Annette, just so we’re clear, this post was not designed to use Jacob’s death as a weapon in my (or anyone else’s) war with the Courier Tribune (besides, it’s been a very one-sided war for a very long time - because you-all have held all the cards and played them in all the tightly-knit "right" circles, very close to the vest).
It went up in response to a grieving man’s plea that the sacrifice of his son’s fallen comrade-in-arms . . . his last full measure of devotion . . . not be brushed-off or easily forgotten.
But, as someone who believes in those ideals as Jacob did (and did my best to live them in a-different-kind-of service-to-my-country), if I don’t know anything else, I KNOW that Jacob Levy did not die to preserve the kind of “journalism” practiced by the Courier Tribune over the last 15-20 years.
As I alluded earlier using the immortal words of a martyred President, I KNOW in my bones that this young man’s sacrifice REQUIRES much more of the Courier Tribune than you and your “team” have delivered over the last decade or so . . . ignoring stories that don’t reflect well on the “right people”( who put Asheboro on life support in the first place) . . fawning all over Mike Miller while Community One failed . . . winking and nodding while our “non-profit” hospital pulled the strings and monopolized the resources that ultimately left Bob Morrison a rich man and the poorest in our community out in the cold . . . playing citizen against citizen for money (ala the alcohol and annexation wars) . . . turning a deaf ear as good-people-done-very-wrong PLEADED for your help in speaking truth to power . . . flat out pretending that certain people and situations did not exist . . . and now apparently thinking that elitism and racism have a place in marketing your latest offerings (clearly not realizing that this kind of approach to life and business has not already factored heavily into the “death” of our town).
NOTHING IS GOING TO "THRIVE" HERE UNTIL YOU CHANGE YOUR WAYS!!!
Now, Buzz was reluctant for me to post this response to your (insert unprintables) e-mail. He is tired and heartbroken, and wants his son's friend to now rest in peace. So do I.
But I told my friend this morning that if I know anything about Jacob Levy - from the things Buzz has shared - and the tributes and stories I've read online (everywhere, that is, except your newspaper), I know that Jacob Levy would tell him not to be afraid . . . to stand tall and proud . . . and (most of all) not to run from a fight you believe in.
I believe in this fight. ALL of us in and from Randolph County deserve better.
Where do we find these young men and women? We find them in places like Ramseur and Asheboro. And we find them, I think, IN SPITE OF places like Asheboro and institutions like the Courier Tribune.
You’ve danced with Asheboro’s self-appointed “stars” for a long time, Annette. But I’ve got NEWS for you, lady . . .
. . . there are Lights that will shine far brighter in our skies tonight.
And the Star known as "Phoenix" puts you/the Courier Tribune to shame.
My sincere condolences to Jacob's family. My thanks for his service and sacrifice.
Semper Fi.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
The Quality Of Merce In Asheboro, North Carolina
12/8 Note to Readers: This post has been updated. And I'm pulling no punches.
I'm on a blogging break . . . for reasons restated in my last post (on Bob Morrison's real legacy) . . . but some recent developments scream for commentary.
Both the Courier Tribune and the Randolph Guide have "in-depth" stories on the disintegration of Asheboro's once-noble endeavor, the Merce Clinic.
The Clinic, started in 1992, by doctors with charitable intentions donating their time to the town's most indigent, is now "at death's door" (a strange choice of words for newspaper reporters otherwise desperately poo-pooing Forbes Magazine's 2008 "diagnosis" that listed Asheboro as one of the nation's "Top-Ten Dying Towns") . . . and clinic administrators/board members are begging for money . . . from a variety of sources - including Randolph Hospital, and the Randolph County Commissioners.
The history of the clinic includes at least two major "morphs" .. . first into a state-supported Rural Health Clinic . . . and then a Federal Health Center accepting Medicare and Medicaid (with one exception, every one of those I've worked for or encountered in my 14 years on the road, was a criminally-run money pit).
What's not stated in the Courier's article is that Randolph Hospital was pulling a lot of the strings behind the scenes (and if you read between the lines in the article, still is). Rest assured, Bob Morrison and his "team" of rabid-dogs-out-to-kill-or-eat-every-private-practice-in-sight had their fingers in that pie . . . for reason$ that $uited them.
I guess Randolph Medical Associates (RMA) . . . "non-profit" Randolph Hospital's wholly-owned controlled affiliate . . . did not pick up all the slack for the community's poor and under-served . . . as hospital executives originally promised it would when developing that practice was pitched to city and county leaders.
In other words, RMA was SUPPOSED to be Merce. And the practice and "mission" I was recruited to was a LIE.
For you see, RMA could not be Asheboro's "premiere" white-bread practice and Randolph Hospital's own personal money machine (always Bob Morrison's goal as he and Steve Eblin monopolized every resource in town - and bullied/manipulated every doctor) . . . if it really had to take care of people with no insurance and no money. It was better for those folks to be dumped on the Merce Clinic and the Health Department (Sorry, Dick. You've been a patsy all along - you just didn't know it.).
It was all a sick, warped game . . . with Bob Morrison walking away with over $700,000 in salary and benefits in the 2009 fiscal year. Shortly, he'll be walking away from his version of the Titanic - with nary a backwards glance . . . and the journalistic dolts at the Courier Tribune still covering his lying tail.
According to the Courier's article, Merce's problems result from "poor management in the past and issues with productivity, billing, collections and marketing" (I had to blink several times as I could not believe I was reading such an forthright admission of local incompetence in the oh-so-upbeat Courier Tribune). It is also in trouble with the IRS because of $34,000 in payroll taxes that were never paid (the funds were embezzled by the company hired to handle that aspect of the business).
The County Commissioners were dumbfounded by news of the clinic's fiscal troubles, and dismayed at the request for nearly a quarter-million dollars in emergency funding (money, I can assure you, that the Randolph County taxpayer will never, ever see again). According to the article, most of the bunch sat silently by as their comrade Stan Haywood (a local pharmacist) fired a barrage of questions at Merce (and Randolph Hospital) Board member, Mimi Cooper (you see how this all works).
The article styled the Commissioner's collective silence as "deferring to Stan's knowledge of the healthcare industry."
And I'm sorry. That's where I draw the line.
Like Dr. Jim Kinlaw (of White Oak Family Physicians - also a Randolph Hospital Board member - and like Bob Morrison, soon to retire), I once considered Commissioner Haywood a close family friend and colleague. My sainted Mother taught his children (as she taught Jim Kinlaw's) at Loflin School, and I had known him for years before I came back home to Asheboro to practice. I always thought he was a good egg.
Accordingly, I'd just like to know, exactly WHERE was Stan Haywood's vast knowledge of the healthcare industry - and his voice - when Dr. Mary Johnson . . . National Health Service Corps provider . . . state and Federal loan-repayment recipient . . . was ROYALLY SCREWED OVER by Bob Morrison, Steve Eblin and the rubber-stamping mill-town fat-cats running our local "non-profit" hospital?
In her presentation to the County Commissioners, Mimi Cooper (Director of the Randolph County Health Department and another ex-colleague), not-so-subtly trashed the Merce Board-of-Directors . . . implying that because a controlling percentage of them had to be clinic clients, that they were essentially too stupid to understand the Clinic's operating problems.
Sorting through all the crap was too much for them. They could only pray for help.
Okay, fine. But tell me, Mimi. When it came to the case of Dr. Mary Johnson . . . local homegrown Pediatrician . . . who served pro-bono on your Child Fatality Task Force . . . who slogged through the child abuse cases (that no one else in town would touch) for the paltry reimbursement the state offered (only to be routinely ABUSED by the Randolph County Court jesters) . . . who covered Pediatric criticial-care back-up call for EVERYBODY 24-7 . . . who was happy with a reasonable salary for her hard work (as opposed to selling her life for fat incentives) . . . who was fired for saving a dying newborn baby's life & blowing the whistle on bad care . . . then sued for telling the truth to the governments she served (after the hospital tried to cover it all up) . . . then swindled by PERJURY, CONTEMPT and FRAUD when she dared fight back . . . what is YOUR excuse?
What is Jim Kinlaw's excuse? And what is Stan's?
Did ANY of you really smart, ethical, knowledgeable people with your "small town values" . . . so-called "experts" in healthcare . . . ask a SINGLE question about the hundreds of thousands of state and Federal dollars poured down the drain when NOT ONE, BUT TWO Pediatricians who came to Asheboro with the intent of making it their home forever were maliciously run out of town on a rail by Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin . . . all to cover up medical badness and serve the be$t fi$cal interest$ of Randolph Medical Associates . . .
. . . as opposed to the best interests of the children of this community?
If you're not STUPID, you're GUTLESS COWARDS AND SELL-OUTS (and I'm voting for the later because YOU ALL KNEW WHAT WAS DONE TO ME WAS WRONG). Either way, you people make me sick.
"Experts" on healthcare? That's a real HOOT!
There's a reason Asheboro is "dying". And I've got news for the Randolph County Economic Development Corporation, all of the consultants and upbeat cheer-leading in the world are not going to fix it. It's a good thing John Rogers is praying for all of you, because I simply cannot bring myself do it.
With regards to your predicaments now, you could say that the quality of my mercy is strained.
12/8 Late Evening Update
I am informed that tonight Mimi Cooper & company went begging for even more money from the Asheboro City Council . . . to the tune of $40,000.
Of course, they got it. It was more or less a done deal before Mimi even asked. That's the way things are done in Asheboro.
The same, sad/sorry excuses for the clinic's predicament were presented to the City Council that were presented to the Randolph County Commissioners just days earlier . . . and they go something like this: "Yes, we've made some HUGE mistakes . . . and no, we cannot seem to manage our way out of a wet paper bag . . . and yes, the majority of our board is stupid (funny how Asheboro's "non-profits" never want to identify who sits on their boards and is legally RESPONSIBLE for the mistakes) . . . but if we adopt a new business model that pumps up the volume of paying patients (i.e. Medicare and Medicaid), and craps on thedoctors providers (cranking up the clinic hours and working them to death is called increasing their "productivity"), we really hope we can make it work."
The holy name of Randolph Hospital was apparently thrown around tonight with gusto . . . . with Miss Mimi presenting Bob Morrison and his management "team" as a bunch of knights riding in on white horses to show Merce how it's done . . . nevermind that the Merce Clinic would not need to exist AT ALL if our "non-profit" hospital had done what it said it was going to do with Randolph Medical Associates . . . and honored the "mission" I was recruited to back in 1994.
The TRUTH is that if Randolph Hospital's leaders had kept their promises, Merce's patients, young and old, would have long ago been absorbed by RMA . . . and not now presented (by the very people who are supposed to SERVE THEM) as scallywags who would flood the already over-worked Emergency Department.
(As an aside, please don't get me started on the ER's Eric Helsabeck. He's another Randolph Hospital medical stalwart who thought it would be easier to go along with the Bobber and crush the Pediatrician who told him the truth he didn't want to hear - as opposed to fixing the problems she brought to his attention. The boys would all teach "the bitch" a lesson. How's that working out for you, Eric?)
And girls and boys, there's a REASON that the highly-coveted designation of "Federally Qualified Health Center" (FQHC), if lost by the Merce Clinic, would NEVER again be awarded to ANY entity in Randolph County.
Inasmuch as their oversight SUCKS, the Feds KNOW that the "non-profit" healthcare system in Randolph County is run by imcompetents, crooks and liars.
What goes around. And it's coming around for Asheboro in spades. Welcome to the vacuum, Jim (Kinlaw).
The Courier's uber-uesless, grinning, aging-hippie-with-a-pen-for-sale, Chip Womick, was at the Council meeting . . . so tomorrow morning I guess we'll get to see how this colossal cluster-screw of the city & county taxpayer is viewed through the rose-colored glasses of the Randolph County Economic Development Corporation's happy rah-rah crowd. Trouble is, the spinning these days needs a few cycles with heavy-duty bleach. Even then it still smells.
The sinus-wash-worthy kicker of the evening came when Mayor David Smith said tonight that City Council members are going to be engaging in online ethics training.
That's only about two decades too late, David. You might remember, Mr. Mayor, that my family and I BEGGED THE CITY COUNCIL for help getting our *&^%$#@! hospital to act ethically back in 2004. You could not be bothered. And it's biting you now. Too bad. So sad.
I guess the quality of my mercy is still strained, huh? Can't imagine why.
I'm on a blogging break . . . for reasons restated in my last post (on Bob Morrison's real legacy) . . . but some recent developments scream for commentary.
Both the Courier Tribune and the Randolph Guide have "in-depth" stories on the disintegration of Asheboro's once-noble endeavor, the Merce Clinic.
The Clinic, started in 1992, by doctors with charitable intentions donating their time to the town's most indigent, is now "at death's door" (a strange choice of words for newspaper reporters otherwise desperately poo-pooing Forbes Magazine's 2008 "diagnosis" that listed Asheboro as one of the nation's "Top-Ten Dying Towns") . . . and clinic administrators/board members are begging for money . . . from a variety of sources - including Randolph Hospital, and the Randolph County Commissioners.
The history of the clinic includes at least two major "morphs" .. . first into a state-supported Rural Health Clinic . . . and then a Federal Health Center accepting Medicare and Medicaid (with one exception, every one of those I've worked for or encountered in my 14 years on the road, was a criminally-run money pit).
What's not stated in the Courier's article is that Randolph Hospital was pulling a lot of the strings behind the scenes (and if you read between the lines in the article, still is). Rest assured, Bob Morrison and his "team" of rabid-dogs-out-to-kill-or-eat-every-private-practice-in-sight had their fingers in that pie . . . for reason$ that $uited them.
I guess Randolph Medical Associates (RMA) . . . "non-profit" Randolph Hospital's wholly-owned controlled affiliate . . . did not pick up all the slack for the community's poor and under-served . . . as hospital executives originally promised it would when developing that practice was pitched to city and county leaders.
In other words, RMA was SUPPOSED to be Merce. And the practice and "mission" I was recruited to was a LIE.
For you see, RMA could not be Asheboro's "premiere" white-bread practice and Randolph Hospital's own personal money machine (always Bob Morrison's goal as he and Steve Eblin monopolized every resource in town - and bullied/manipulated every doctor) . . . if it really had to take care of people with no insurance and no money. It was better for those folks to be dumped on the Merce Clinic and the Health Department (Sorry, Dick. You've been a patsy all along - you just didn't know it.).
It was all a sick, warped game . . . with Bob Morrison walking away with over $700,000 in salary and benefits in the 2009 fiscal year. Shortly, he'll be walking away from his version of the Titanic - with nary a backwards glance . . . and the journalistic dolts at the Courier Tribune still covering his lying tail.
According to the Courier's article, Merce's problems result from "poor management in the past and issues with productivity, billing, collections and marketing" (I had to blink several times as I could not believe I was reading such an forthright admission of local incompetence in the oh-so-upbeat Courier Tribune). It is also in trouble with the IRS because of $34,000 in payroll taxes that were never paid (the funds were embezzled by the company hired to handle that aspect of the business).
The County Commissioners were dumbfounded by news of the clinic's fiscal troubles, and dismayed at the request for nearly a quarter-million dollars in emergency funding (money, I can assure you, that the Randolph County taxpayer will never, ever see again). According to the article, most of the bunch sat silently by as their comrade Stan Haywood (a local pharmacist) fired a barrage of questions at Merce (and Randolph Hospital) Board member, Mimi Cooper (you see how this all works).
The article styled the Commissioner's collective silence as "deferring to Stan's knowledge of the healthcare industry."
And I'm sorry. That's where I draw the line.
Like Dr. Jim Kinlaw (of White Oak Family Physicians - also a Randolph Hospital Board member - and like Bob Morrison, soon to retire), I once considered Commissioner Haywood a close family friend and colleague. My sainted Mother taught his children (as she taught Jim Kinlaw's) at Loflin School, and I had known him for years before I came back home to Asheboro to practice. I always thought he was a good egg.
Accordingly, I'd just like to know, exactly WHERE was Stan Haywood's vast knowledge of the healthcare industry - and his voice - when Dr. Mary Johnson . . . National Health Service Corps provider . . . state and Federal loan-repayment recipient . . . was ROYALLY SCREWED OVER by Bob Morrison, Steve Eblin and the rubber-stamping mill-town fat-cats running our local "non-profit" hospital?
In her presentation to the County Commissioners, Mimi Cooper (Director of the Randolph County Health Department and another ex-colleague), not-so-subtly trashed the Merce Board-of-Directors . . . implying that because a controlling percentage of them had to be clinic clients, that they were essentially too stupid to understand the Clinic's operating problems.
Sorting through all the crap was too much for them. They could only pray for help.
Okay, fine. But tell me, Mimi. When it came to the case of Dr. Mary Johnson . . . local homegrown Pediatrician . . . who served pro-bono on your Child Fatality Task Force . . . who slogged through the child abuse cases (that no one else in town would touch) for the paltry reimbursement the state offered (only to be routinely ABUSED by the Randolph County Court jesters) . . . who covered Pediatric criticial-care back-up call for EVERYBODY 24-7 . . . who was happy with a reasonable salary for her hard work (as opposed to selling her life for fat incentives) . . . who was fired for saving a dying newborn baby's life & blowing the whistle on bad care . . . then sued for telling the truth to the governments she served (after the hospital tried to cover it all up) . . . then swindled by PERJURY, CONTEMPT and FRAUD when she dared fight back . . . what is YOUR excuse?
What is Jim Kinlaw's excuse? And what is Stan's?
Did ANY of you really smart, ethical, knowledgeable people with your "small town values" . . . so-called "experts" in healthcare . . . ask a SINGLE question about the hundreds of thousands of state and Federal dollars poured down the drain when NOT ONE, BUT TWO Pediatricians who came to Asheboro with the intent of making it their home forever were maliciously run out of town on a rail by Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin . . . all to cover up medical badness and serve the be$t fi$cal interest$ of Randolph Medical Associates . . .
. . . as opposed to the best interests of the children of this community?
If you're not STUPID, you're GUTLESS COWARDS AND SELL-OUTS (and I'm voting for the later because YOU ALL KNEW WHAT WAS DONE TO ME WAS WRONG). Either way, you people make me sick.
"Experts" on healthcare? That's a real HOOT!
There's a reason Asheboro is "dying". And I've got news for the Randolph County Economic Development Corporation, all of the consultants and upbeat cheer-leading in the world are not going to fix it. It's a good thing John Rogers is praying for all of you, because I simply cannot bring myself do it.
With regards to your predicaments now, you could say that the quality of my mercy is strained.
12/8 Late Evening Update
I am informed that tonight Mimi Cooper & company went begging for even more money from the Asheboro City Council . . . to the tune of $40,000.
Of course, they got it. It was more or less a done deal before Mimi even asked. That's the way things are done in Asheboro.
The same, sad/sorry excuses for the clinic's predicament were presented to the City Council that were presented to the Randolph County Commissioners just days earlier . . . and they go something like this: "Yes, we've made some HUGE mistakes . . . and no, we cannot seem to manage our way out of a wet paper bag . . . and yes, the majority of our board is stupid (funny how Asheboro's "non-profits" never want to identify who sits on their boards and is legally RESPONSIBLE for the mistakes) . . . but if we adopt a new business model that pumps up the volume of paying patients (i.e. Medicare and Medicaid), and craps on the
The holy name of Randolph Hospital was apparently thrown around tonight with gusto . . . . with Miss Mimi presenting Bob Morrison and his management "team" as a bunch of knights riding in on white horses to show Merce how it's done . . . nevermind that the Merce Clinic would not need to exist AT ALL if our "non-profit" hospital had done what it said it was going to do with Randolph Medical Associates . . . and honored the "mission" I was recruited to back in 1994.
The TRUTH is that if Randolph Hospital's leaders had kept their promises, Merce's patients, young and old, would have long ago been absorbed by RMA . . . and not now presented (by the very people who are supposed to SERVE THEM) as scallywags who would flood the already over-worked Emergency Department.
(As an aside, please don't get me started on the ER's Eric Helsabeck. He's another Randolph Hospital medical stalwart who thought it would be easier to go along with the Bobber and crush the Pediatrician who told him the truth he didn't want to hear - as opposed to fixing the problems she brought to his attention. The boys would all teach "the bitch" a lesson. How's that working out for you, Eric?)
And girls and boys, there's a REASON that the highly-coveted designation of "Federally Qualified Health Center" (FQHC), if lost by the Merce Clinic, would NEVER again be awarded to ANY entity in Randolph County.
Inasmuch as their oversight SUCKS, the Feds KNOW that the "non-profit" healthcare system in Randolph County is run by imcompetents, crooks and liars.
What goes around. And it's coming around for Asheboro in spades. Welcome to the vacuum, Jim (Kinlaw).
The Courier's uber-uesless, grinning, aging-hippie-with-a-pen-for-sale, Chip Womick, was at the Council meeting . . . so tomorrow morning I guess we'll get to see how this colossal cluster-screw of the city & county taxpayer is viewed through the rose-colored glasses of the Randolph County Economic Development Corporation's happy rah-rah crowd. Trouble is, the spinning these days needs a few cycles with heavy-duty bleach. Even then it still smells.
The sinus-wash-worthy kicker of the evening came when Mayor David Smith said tonight that City Council members are going to be engaging in online ethics training.
That's only about two decades too late, David. You might remember, Mr. Mayor, that my family and I BEGGED THE CITY COUNCIL for help getting our *&^%$#@! hospital to act ethically back in 2004. You could not be bothered. And it's biting you now. Too bad. So sad.
I guess the quality of my mercy is still strained, huh? Can't imagine why.
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