Randolph Hospital Wouldnt' Know A "Health Care Hero" If She Jumped Up (With Her Clothes On) And Sued Them

*This post has been updated (scroll to bottom).

Over the last little while, I've deviated into the political realm, and I didn't really want to do that. So today we're going back to the reason this blog exists.

Hospital administrators, especially those of the rural (or supposedly rural)/"non-profit" persuasion, never cease to amaze me. It's like they live in their own little insulated world (with elevators). Patients, doctors, nurses, board members, community leaders, and gullible/pandering public officials are just a pawns on their chessboard.

This past week, Randolph Hospital previewed it's new cancer/outpatient center to "the right people". The PR is being laid on with a trowel. According to the spin, relying on "technology you can trust" is going to change the way health care is delivered in Randolph County. "Wonderful medicine" will be practiced. " A lot of patients will be cured."

Based on past experience, one can only hope. Some of us still have to live with our scars from the bad medicine practiced in the old building.

You see, "Care you can trust" turned out to be a BIG BUST for this ex-"valued employee" . . . and the parents/patients who trusted & relied upon me - who were burned because I trusted and relied upon Randolph Hospital to, (1) put patients first and (2) play fair.

David Renfro's Courier Tribune positively drooled as it rattled off the donations for the center . . . from old family money (Armfield - you really have to wonder about the "due diligence" the foundation conducted - did they not even do a Google search?), and corporations, and taxpayers (about which the taxpayers had no say) . . . rolling in for this project.

Honestly, this post has been brewing for a well over a year. And it should have been up a week ago. But lately, as I consider options I have not had until very recently, its been a little bit harder to muster up the energy to be outraged. Some people would say that's a good sign that I'm finally coming to terms with being professionally robbed/raped and left for dead by the third-rate executives of a "two-bit BandAid station" (someone else's description that I am finding more and more apropos) disguised as a noble Cone affiliate.

The Fall Festival is coming up this weekend - and I will be home. But I'm not sure I can muster the enthusiasm even for that. I wonder if there will be alcohol.

Put quite simply, this real native daughter (as opposed to fake ones like "MiniSchmid") is finding it harder and harder to care about this mill town where she grew up . . . to which she gave so much . . . and in return, has gotten so little.

Less than little. Negative little.

(And with all due respect to the Courier's current favorite politically-correct darling, Brenda Lopez, she's got nothing on me. All I've got to say is, Sweetie I was born here and got treated like dirt. You've had two articles on your plight in less-than-a-month, and I've had ZERO in five years. So stand in line. And if you ever see "Doctora" Riley, give her my regards.)

I've been running on empty where Asheboro is concerned. But then, Randolph Hospital CEO, Bob Morrison, snuggled up to my ex-boyfriend at a local lawn-party for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bev Perdue and make an inane "funny" about nurses looking different/being easier to recognize with their clothes on. That was all it took to re-light the fire for this "arrogant and cliquish" lady doctor who once dared to tell Bob and his right-hand flunky, Steve Eblin, they were wrong.

The man has no respect for women.

He can't hold that liquor he wanted so badly either.

In Peggy's absence, I have to wonder if Bob was sizing up Bev.

Robert Morrison really has to be a total moron (or more likely drunk - it would not be the first time) to say something like that about women he employs within earshot of Dr. Mary Johnson's ex (with whom she is still on good terms) . . . and not think it won't get back to her . . . or that she won't blog it.

I digress. As Randolph extols the virtues of its current cancer-fighting medical staff (if you buy all the hype, they should wear capes and have "S's" on their chests), the hospital's propagandic birdcage-liner (excuse me, newsletter), "Health Link" continues to cycle a ditty called "Healthcare Heros".

The first time I saw it (in a previous "Healthlink" a while back), it was a bitter pill to swallow . . . for there is simply no comparison between what I've endured for doing the right thing one awful night at Randolph ten years ago, and the "heroics" of the (earnest and proud) employees now featured in the newsletter.

I mean no offense to these good folks - some of whom I worked with. But the truth is the truth.

As featured/described in the current newsletter, Randolph's current heroes build frames for donated quilts. They go to the grocery store to buy Depends for patient because the hospital only supplied diapers (aka "incontient briefs'). They accompany patients transferred to nursing homes. They assist confused diabetics at gas stations. They help patients with insurance issues (we know the hospital won't . . . it will just take the money). They clean and bathe patients who cannot do for themselves. They initiate CPR when people fall out in the hall. They organize memorial walks for babies who died.

These ordinary folks do their good deeds . . . they get recognition and appreciation . . . and they move on happily with their lives.

But one "health care hero" at Randolph . . . a home-grown Pediatrician in public service . . . did not get a pat on the back for going above and beyond one night in the middle of the night . . . for putting a baby's life above everything she held dear.

The Pediatrician, in point of fact, got the shaft. Her life became a nightmare. And nobody in Asheboro or Randolph County who could has EVER lifted a finger to do anything about it.

No one was heroic at all.

Let's review (for the umpteenth time). The doctor in question defied threats against her livelihood to intervene in a neonatal case being botched by someone else (someone hospital PR gurus advertised as having skills & training he did not possess - someone they eventually elevated to Chief of Staff). She ultimately saved a newborn's life. She also reported the mess to hospital peer review - because that's what a doctor is supposed to do when someone's actions put a patient in danger (it's about preventing something like that from happening again - I think they call it "quality assurance").

Indeed that's what all the bleeding-heart bloggers-screaming-for-universal-healthcare . . . and the malpractice lawyers . . . and the politicians-who-fund-the-loan-repayment-for-service programs . . . and the clueless bureacrats-who-insist-that-whistleblowers-are-protected . . . and the Medical-Board-that-lies-to-the-public-but-still-wants-you-to-believe-you're-being-protected . . . and the local newspapers-that-can-pontificate-so-eloquently-on-corruption (but only when it suits their agenda) . . . would have expected the doctor to do - especially if it had been their child/grandchild.

The trouble is, when this Pediatrician did what she was supposed to do, not only did she not get any praise or recognition, NONE of the aforementioned self-serving, hypocritical gas-bags had her back (especially not the town's sad/sorry joke of a daily newspaper).

And the doctor is not supposed to be white-hot angry - or bitter - about that.

No. For her trouble, the Pediatrician was fired (her practice destroyed & absorbed by the oh-so-noble hospital-owned "non-profit") . . . then she was force to sue the practice - because no one in a position of oversight (especially not the "outstanding" medical staff now feeding the outpatient center) thought that what administrators had done crossed any lines . . . then she was sued (for telling the state & federal governments she served what had happened) . . . then she was swindled at settlement (by perjury contempt and fraud) . . . and for five years, since reporting the crimes to the local DA, she has been blown off and ignored.

This is how government-sponsored medicine really works. This is how the North Carolina justice system works. This is how Asheboro works. This is how Randolph Hospital works.

No oversight. No accountability. Lots of empty hype.

Why has the Pediatrician been blown off and ignored? Well, first, she's not one of Asheboro's "right people". She wasn't a Country Club girl growing up and she didn't become one when she came back home. And let's look at it from a Chamber of Commerce perspective. Randolph Hospital is one of the county's major employers. We cannot talk about the serious mistakes and gigantic tactical errors the hospital has made (particularly the ones that have put primary care in the back-seat of the bus . . . so the money-making cancer-fighters can ride in the front). It makes Asheboro look bad.

And we simply cannot have anyone questioning the ethics or the (illegal) actions of Randolph's way-overpaid executives. Moreover, if the general populace knew what these unconvicted felons were pulling down despite their felonies, it might make the simple folk in Bob's warped version of Camelot angry.

As an aside, I have not a chance to peruse what was in the latest envelope Randolph sent me - but the last salary (2006) I have on Bob Morrison is that he's pulling down $379,634/year, with additional benefits & expense accounts totaling nearly $35,000. Like the Wall-Street tycoons now in free-fall, Bob and his senior Bobettes have fed liberally at the small town executive perk trough. The trough is smaller - but they've gotten quite fat.

*Cue elevator ping. Going up.

Let's compare and contrast what these executives think they're worth to what they think a doctor's life and career are worth: While walking away with their mega-salaries - and having all of their attorneys' fees covered by the hospital, Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin blatantly lied under Oath . . . withholding information they KNEW to be on the public record . . . in order to swindle a doctor they had deeply wronged. In their world, it was quite alright to pay Dr. Mary Johnson only $125,000 (taxed as income) in "compensation" for three years of lost work/a destroyed Pediatric practice/a pummeled reputation/and three years of subsequent of litigation (she paid her own attorney - who clearly did not earn his keep). And it didn't stop there. Bob and Steve did not only destroy what the doctor had built. They also destroyed opportunities for her to transition into her own practice or relocate to a town nearby or move on to fellowship. What they did and how they did it affected her career FOREVER. They did not care.

But hey, less than a year's public service pay should cover the damage.

It's just damned warped math. In terms of value for buck, neither Morrison nor Eblin have ever taken care of a single patient. Compared the many of the physicians they've run off, neither one of them have any clue whatsoever about what real call, real work, or real responsibility are. Anybody with a newly-minted MBA could do what they do - and probably do it better - for less money and with less collateral damage.

Meanwhile, they've passed smug judgement on countless clinicians - and run good people - even entire departments of doctors - out of town. But they suffer no real scrutiny themselves - even when they break the law. As long as they put up a pretty building every now and then, they are untouchable.

So they laugh all the way to the bank when they deserve to be shown the door and/or in jail.

Asheboro's "Economic Development" gurus . . . good friends of Bob and Steve (through all the social-networking bedrocks - like Rotary and the Country Club and Chamber of Commerce) . . . are willing accomplices. They wink and they nod. They reason (incorrectly) that openly reporting or challenging what these corporate bullies have done would destroy credibility and public confidence . . . it would mean bad PR . . . and bad PR is bad for business.

They reason that we can't have anyone thinking ill of Randolph Hospital . . . especially not after securing its latest Certificate of Need (CON) from the state (one has to wonder if the NC Department of Health & Human Services is even awake) - and paying all that money for a fancy-schmancy liner-accelerator/CT simulator. The "cancer business" might dry up and go somewhere that isn't a just a "BandAid station putting on airs".

So the hospital Board members and medical staff/county commissioners and state legislators and city council members and district attorneys who all know about "the case of Dr. Mary Johnson" and have done absolutely nothing about it, KEEP doing nothing.

What is one doctor's life and happiness when Randolph Hospital is thisclose to finally slicing off its own piece of the community-goodwill-pie that has robustly fed Relay-For-Life and Hospice for so long? After all, cancer is BIG money compared to wiping little snotty noses and covering C-Sections.

(As another aside, it seems that lately, every hospital in every tiny podunk town is bucking to be the next Mayo Clinic - with all the latest advanced technology at their fingertips - and all of the big fish in little ponds wanting their name on a brick. And nobody understands why healthcare costs a fricking fortune.)

But here's the thing about the "right people's" reasoning: History matters and people in this neck-of-the woods have very long memories. They want accountability and they want honesty - substance over style. Moreover, the locals know something smells at Randolph - they are not stupid. But the powers-that-be at the hospital seem to be just that . . . because ignoring the "Mary Johnson" situation raises the hospital's negative profile on the Internet with every passing day/post.

The PR consultants (who, by the way, take their marching orders from the guilty parties in this mess) and hospital board members (who circled their wagons around the guilty parties fairly early on - and kept jacking up their salaries no matter what) don't seem to get that removing what caused the odor, and opening the windows and getting out the air freshener might reduce the smell. "The right people" in Asheboro did not learn a thing when Bill Clinton said he was sorry. These far-less-important good-ole-boys cannot admit they were ever wrong.

It's hurting them. And so it should.

Morrison, fancying himself eloquent, used to like to quote an old "customer service" adage: "One happy customer will tell one person - but unhappy customer will tell 10 and those ten will tell 100 and so on".

Well, this unhappy customer is on the Internet - and she's telling hundreds, if not thousands of people about her experience at this hospital - both as a physician and a patient. She's warning young physicians (especially those "arrogant and cliquish" girls who keep their clothes on) to avoid Asheboro like the plague - and not to be the bunny in the snake pit that she was.

It's my opinion that one should not invest well-over-a-decade of one's life in higher education - slaving away in classrooms and labs - living in libraries - playing the peon on hospital wards - only to come out/come home and be treated like I was by two blow-hard money-changers that Jesus himself would toss out of the Temple for what they've done.

Moreover, primary-care doctors are in shortage. The state of North Carolina has got to get its head out of its butt and start doing more to protect them from predatory hospitals.

One reader, enthralled by my story of woe, recently made me laugh out loud: "You have all but called them (Bob Morrison and Steve Eblin) pustule-infested-pedophiles in your blog, but for some odd reason they don't come after you. That is what I find curious. It's almost as if ol' MJ is calling them out for a street fight, but they're staying inside. If you accused me of perjury, and I HADN'T DONE IT, I'd whup yer ass."

There will no "ass-whupping" on Bob's part. Steve's either. They committed felonies (plural). And I am holding the original documents that prove it.

Besides, when Bob and Steve came after me the first time (with their despicable "SLAPP" suit), they ultimately tucked tail and ran from the open courtroom. Turns out, it was on the cheap - as they lied in their own discovery responses in their own slimeball lawsuit.

So (cue Scarlett O'Hara) as God as my witness, if they try anything like that again, they will not be running anywhere . . . they will go out in cuffs. There will be no tails to tuck because I will cut them off.

Bob Morrison and Steve Eblin should have been fired for cause when their perjury/contempt/fraud was first brought to the attention of hospital lawyers - and Randolph Hospital's Board of Directors - five years ago. Their perjury was a massive ethical mis-step that places a huge dark cloud of liability over the hospital. For perjury has no statute of limitations.

And the damages clock is ten years and ticking.

Like I've always said, corruption begins at home.

Of course, in this case, a pandering/gutless/amoral hospital board is not the only problem. Randolph County DA (Garland Yates - now running for re-election) is fully aware of this case, and has refused to even meet with me . . . much less refer the case to where it has always needed to go (according to every lawyer I have ever chatted up) . . . the NC Attorney General.

(As yet another aside, maybe I'm actually lucky Garland hasn't yet prosecuted my case. I wouldn't want any of my originals lounging around in his evidence room. I wonder how many tainted cases are going to get thrown out?)

To date, the NC Attorney General office has said it sympathizes with my predicament, but (despite the fact that I am a doctor licensed by the state and suffered retaliation for doing my sworn duty) it denies the state has any jurisdiction (the Medical Board had done the same thing - doctors have to abide by their rules - but when they stand firm for them, the Board does not have their back).

As I've stated before -there are problems with the AG's argument. The first is that I was in public service - not only to the Feds but to the state as well. And guess what I recently dug up from the bottom of three years of legal files?

Yes, that's right. My original signed agreement with "The North Carolina Student Loan Program For Health Science And Mathematics Of The State Education Assistance Authority" - along with the canceled note. In short, loan repayment for service to the state.

The state also helped determine eligible sites for the National Health Service Corps (my federal obligation). Put very simply, the state of North Carolina, in conjunction with the federal government, had an obligation to look out for me - to protect me and to see that contracts & obligations were completely honored - and that the full benefit of the taxpayer's investment in paying for my medical degree was realized. The FACT is that NCDHHS (whose lawyer is the Attorney General) could have stopped most of the ugliness before it even got started - and even if it couldn't, NCDHHS should have gotten me to someone at USDHHS who could.

NCDHHS certainly could have done a lot more to apply heat to the hospital to come clean since I reported the perjury/contempt/fraud five years ago.

Withholding approval for Certificates of Need comes to mind.

Moreover, there's also another very easy/simple way for this case to wind up on the NCAG's desk - without me hiring lawyers or suing anybody. Under General Statute 55A-1-31 (the NC Nonprofit Corporation Act), the NC Secretary of State need only submit one interogatory question to "non-profit" Randolph Hospital executives.

And that question is this: Did you or did you not lie under Oath about the "confidentiality" of financial informaion that was, in fact, public record [by virtue of Randoph Hospital's status as a 501(c)(3) charity]?

If Bob/Steve answer, "No, I did not lie", then the state has evidence on-hand to the contrary and the Secretary is obliged to report the perjury to the NC Attorney General.

If Bob/Steve answer, "Yes, I did lie", then they have admitted perjury, and the Secretary is obliged to report it to the NC Attorney General.

As perjury, contempt and fraud clearly are an "abuse of the authority" and privilege granted a public charity by law, and its executives have clearly acted in a manner that is "illegal, opppressive and fraudulent", Randolph Hospital could concievably be dissolved as a "non-profit" entity and/or forced to re-organize.

And (of course) as they are guilty of multiple felonies, Morrison and Eblin could conceivable see jail time - if there were ANY bite in the state's bark.

So, after five years of the jurisdictional dodge, I am more than just a little put out with both the Secretary and the AG . . . as I have corresponded with both offices on numerous occasions . . . and they have repeatedly dived under their desks (nobody wants to acknowlege that hospitals playing dirty is a big problem in this state) .

Of course, the e-mails have probably been deleted on their end - on an edict from Governor Sleazely. That's okay. I should have them somewhere.

And so we're down to it. The only "Healthcare Hero" I want to see is the NC Attorney General riding in on his white horse and cleaning the clocks of the lying, cheating, alcohol-slurping, fat-cat, sexist-pig administrators who treated a good home-grown doctor like dirt . . . and rattling the cage of the hospital (where she was medically mauled - TWICE) that let them do it.

I need a hero to smack-down the SLIMEBALL JERKS who think that their female clinical staff are there to be oogled - and/or diddled - and/or bullied - and/or discarded when they've outlived their usefulness to the hospital's bottom line.

Over the next few weeks, I will be working to those ends. And if I cannot find a hero, maybe I'll have to be one again.

"Nurses are easier to recognize with their clothes on."

Really Bob? How would YOU know?

And, I gotta say, as an Emperor, you are down to your underwear.

9/29 Update: Mine is the one "tale" Courier Tribune reporter, Chip Womick, left out of his book. Gotta step over Randolph County's dead bodies and focus on the quaint and the positive.

10/2 Update: A couple of folks have called to tell me about Annette Jordan's latest "Ode to Randolph Hospital" in the Courier Tribune. None of them were too pleased . . . given how long I have lanquished in local journalistic obscurity . . . for the sake of the economic well-being of the "damned wannabe BandAid station" (like I said, they were not too pleased) that values two-bit, lying, overpaid administrators over good physicians.

(And no one can figure out how the mess on Wall Street happened. It's easy when greed is good - when right and wrong do not matter.)

Of course, our Annette has never had to have her palate "reconstructed" . . . she's never been told she had a "surgical orifice" in her face that was placed in the wrong place (or suffered the excruciating pain associated with that unfortunate medical "oversight"). Moreoever she's not the homegirl who saw her life & career torpedoed for doing the job she was sworn to do . . . and she hasn't spent five years being spat on and ignored by the local, state and federal governments that are supposed to protect her - and uphold the law.

Annette's fawning column is pure and simple damage control - just like everything else this sorry-excuse- for-a-newspaper does every time I put up a post reiterating the hospital's not-so-sun-shiny-past . . . and the truth that hurts.

I've learned to shrug it off.

As for Ms. Jordan, she's supposedly a journalist. Any time she decides that "small town values" actually do matter . . . any time she's inclined to stop sucking up to "the right people" . . . any time she wants to take off the rose-colored-glasses-with-lenses-as-thick-as-the-bottom-of-a-Coke-bottle . . . any time she wants to tell the community she supposedly serves the whole truth instead of just a sugar-coated portion of it . . . she knows where to look.

10/3 Update: On Sunday, I sent an e-mail (high priority/return receipt) to the "Victims Services" unit of the NC Attorney General's office - with the (I think reasonable) expectation that it would be initially read by someone sometime on Monday or Tuesday, and I'd get a response at least by Thursday.

It included a time-sensitive request (at least in terms of the time I am going to invest) - and really is the last effort I intend to make before hunkering down with the files and chatting up the lawyers (I want to be able to say I jumped through every hoop . . . NO ONE will be able to argue I haven't).

When I did not get a response or a "read-receipt" by yesterday morning, I called the AG's office and asked why. The young lady I got on the phone made the excuse that "we get hundreds, if not thousands of e-mails a week" (my immediate thought was that the justice system must really SUCK for crime victims in this state), and besides, she could not find mine (I realize that one of North Carolina's fine, upstanding representatives may have sacrificed me to the SPAM gods after I sent this to the entire NC legislature last year). She said that the office would look for the e-mail and get back to me.

As of this (Friday) morning . . . NOTHING. I've come to understand that most lawsuits get filed because people get tired of being dismissed/ignored. If you can't beat 'em . . .

And the government wants us to think it can bail us out?