Dr. Mary Johnson vs. Randolph Hospital (And The Corrupt North Carolina Justice System): Eleven Years In 2110 Words

In the wake of filing charges against Jeff Martin (aka "Fecund Stench") for cyber-stalking, Housecalls has a number of first-time readers.

Friends/other bloggers have suggested that I ignore some of "the usual suspects", cut through some of the smoke and mirrors, and take advantage of the increased traffic. And/so I’m offering up the "back-story" to the "blog-war" . . . the story that brought me to the blogosphere in 2005.

As most long-time readers know, after several years of talking to Garland Yates' hand, I came to the blogosphere on the invitation of a journalist - John Robinson of the GSO News & Record. The paper had teamed up with prominent bloggers in the Greensboro area and together they were promoting a concept called "citizen journalism".

But alas, in Greensboro, citizen journalism only works if you serve the deep-blue, progressive agenda of the "big-gun" citizen journalists.

I don't worship at that particular altar.

I've been here almost five years. While I've been here, I've jumped through all the hoops and played all the games and fought all the fights and even tried to be a friend to a man that I obviously shouldn't have. And, for the sin of trying to get someone to care about the awful things that were done to a Pediatrician in public service to her hometown, I've been called every name in the book. I'm "mentally-ill" because I've fought so hard and refused to give up.

Some here have said that I should "shut up" about what happened to me . . . that the blogosphere doesn't "owe" me anything. But I think that if the blogosphere actually IS what it says it IS (don't ya just love that word?), it kinda does. In this era of healthcare reform, where doctors . . . especially primary care doctors . . . are being pushed into tiny corners and stomped all over, if you want someone to care about the patient and do right by them (as I did - and got fired/sued for doing), you have to start caring about the doctor.

Because if you don't, you're not going to have any doctors left.

I've NEVER asked for anything but HELP in making the law do what it says it will do. Meanwhile, there are some in this blogopshere who will press money into the palm of a man who very clearly broke the law . . . because he has the God-given right to act like a sick/warped jerk.

This story is not mean-spirited satire, and it cannot be told in 140 words. On the other hand, I'm not Jerry Bledsoe, so I'll try to keep as short and sweet as I can. So if your attention span is short . . . if you can only wrap your brain cells around a sound bite . . . if you need a fix of "mean" . . . if you've heard it all before and think you know it all already . . . if Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Edwards and Barack Obama are the only healthcare "experts" you care to listen to (nevermind that they're lawyers) . . . or you simply don't care . . . don't bother.

There are other places you can go and people you can read.

Start the word count:

In January 1998, while in public service to both the National Health Service Corps and N.C. Office of Rural Health - by virtue of being the founding Pediatrician of Randolph Medical Associates (the “non-profit”controlled-affiliate of Randolph Hospital - in my hometown of Asheboro), I was threatened with termination by then-RMA Director, Mike Bridges . . . essentially told to “shut-up or else” about problems at the hospital & practice.

At the time, I was Chair of the hospital’s Perinatal Committee and, in addition to staffing a full-time office, was providing 24-7 Pediatric critical care back-up for all of the doctors in town who wanted or asked for it.

The hospital had broken a number of the promises it made at recruitment, and practice management left much to be desired.

Bridges' threats were structured around the complaint of a “VIP parent” in Asheboro . . .who had demanded a treatment that was not necessary and I had refused to approve/provide. The practice director made no effort whatsoever to properly medically vet the complaint. It only mattered that the VIP was angry and her complaint suited his purposes - his main objective being to muzzle me.

Nothing in my peer review files - at the practice - or the hospital remotely justified Bridges' actions.

Two nights later, with that threat hanging over my head, and at the request of the nursing staff, I intervened in a neonatal case where a then-Cone-Hospital-owned Family Practitioner was grossly mismanaging a critically-ill infant.

When I arrived, the baby was very close to crashing/coding.

By ALL accounts, I saved the child’s life.

I reported the incident to hospital peer review the next morning. I did not ask for Mr. Bridge's permission to do so. I also consulted a lawyer because the incident more-than-proved his conditions of employment were medically/professionally intolerable. And without a retraction of the threats, I was not going to talk to Bridges without a third-party/representative present.

Two weeks after that, I was fired “without cause” . . . banned from the office after five days despite the facts that (1) my RMA employment contract required a six-month notice, and (2) my NHSC agreement explicitly stated my practice in the area to which I had been recruited could not be interferred with in any way. The terms of my “notice” (deceptively passed off by Board members as a “severance package”) essentially side-lined and muzzled me in a window-less box for six months.

In that time my practice was destroyed /absorbed by RMA.

The parents of my patients were deliberately lied to and misled.

My hospital privileges were not affected by RMA’s actions (there was no cause), but again, the exclusive terms of RMA"s “notice” and the cancellation of my malpractice insurance prohibited my practice at the hospital. Executives were telling anyone who would listen that I was "free" to start my own practice, but it was a lie.

This is a big point: At NO time during this time (or at any other time) - was I afforded any kind of “due process” hearing by either the RMA or Randolph Hospital Board of Directors/Executive Committees. They simply slurped up what hospital executives fed them.

Some of them are really mad that I'm out here in the blogosphere calling them on it now - sullying their good names (it's my understanding that some of them are rallying behind "Mr. Stench" as if he's a hero.) Like I care. They did not give one thought to mine.

When my “notice” was up, I reported the doctor involved in the nursery case (what is categorized as a JCAHO “sentinel event”) to the North Carolina Medical Board. After a six-month investigation, the Medical Board took no public action against the Family Practitioner (he received what amounted to a behind-the-scenes slap-on-the-hand), and did nothing to help me (they have no authority over hospitals).

In short the Medical Board considers it a "duty" for its licensees to report medical badness, but does not protect them when they do.

In 1999, a year after I was fired, all attempts to resolve the situation having rebuffed by hospital executives, I sued Randolph Medical Associates.

The lawsuit was not reported in our local newspapers.

Later that summer, responding to a request for feedback from Washington, I also reported what happened to Bill Clinton's USDHHS Secretary, Donna Shalala. The complaint was copied to the NC Office of Rural Health (NCDHHS), the North Carolina Medical Board, and the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Hospital Organizations (JCAHO).

I actually met with JCAHO representatives twice - during two separate Randolph Hospital accreditation surveys. JCAHO did NOTHING to address the sentinel event I reported, and advised me that they had no mechanism in place to protect medical whistle-blowers . . . or deal with dishonest/corrupt administrative practices.

They still don’t. In fact, it’s currently very fashionable to label medical whistle-blowers as “disruptive”.

In 2000, Randolph Hospital counter-sued me for “libel” based on excepts from the Shalala complaint. The legal tactic actually has a name. It is called a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) lawsuit. It is designed to intimidate the defendant into silence.

It did not work.

The hospital's lawsuit was front-page news in the local newspapers. Everyone in my hometown (including my horrified parents) got to read that I was a liar.

In 2001, the day before my case against RMA was scheduled to go to trial, both cases were settled in my favor for a sum of $125,000 (less than one-year‘s salary to cover six years of loss).
During negotiations, hospital lawyers argued that that the practice/hospital was “almost bankrupt”.

My attorney (Steven Schmidly, of recent alcohol referendum fame) advised me that the sum was not taxable.

It was.

I was also told that the judge wanted the case resolved "or else". Pretty much locked in a conference room for most of two days, exhausted, emotionally drained, all but bankrupt myself after three years of litigation, told my opponents couldn't afford their just deserts, and promised “cooperation” by hospital executives in getting another practice off the ground, I accepted the deal.

In stark contrast to they way David Renfro had covered the filing of the hospital's "libel" lawsuit (i.e. "inflict maximun damage on Mary Johnson"), the settlement of the lawsuits in my favor was reported as a second-page “short-take” in the Courier Tribune.

Afterwards, cooperation in terms of getting another viable practice off the ground was not forth-coming. The executives I had beaten in Court resumed their obfuscative ways.

In 2003, after reviewing the case files, I discovered that Randolph Hospital senior executives, Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin, had lied repeated under Oath in discovery responses - stating that their financial records and doctors/administrative salaries were “confidential”.

But the information they knowingly withheld is actually public record (recorded on IRS 990 returns), and must be produced upon the request of any taxpayer. At the time their answers were filed with the Court, this information was also published on the Internet at a site called Guidstar.com.

Their lawyers, "experts" on defending "non-profits' had to have known this.

The information on those returns, very relevant to my damages claim, made it clear that the hospital/practice was far from “bankrupt”.

What Mr. Morrison and Mr. Eblin did constitutes perjury, contempt and fraud under N.C. General Statute.

Perjury has no statute of limitations.

Moreover, a "non-profit" officer/executive repeatedly lying under Oath and negotiating a settlement on the lies also falls under the definition of bad faith and is cause for termination under the North Carolina Nonprofit Corporation Act.

Yet Mr. Morrison and Mr. Eblin remain employed, and have gotten very large raises over the years. Indeed, I believe Mr. Morrison's newly-renovated uber-home is on the Asheboro Christmas home-tour this year. I'd list the address, but I don't treat my enemies the way Jeff Martin treats his "friends".

When Randolph Hospital's lawyer was confronted with this information , he invited me to sue again. I was not inclinded to return to a Court that had been so corrupted the first time.

Instead, as Randolph Hospital is a “non-profit” institution, I reported the crime to the Randolph County District Attorney’s office . . . well before the statute of limitations on civil fraud expired.

The DA, Garland Yates, refused to meet with me to discuss the complaint.

His ADA, King Dozier, told me that the matter would be referred to the SBI, but several weeks later, when I made inquiries, the SBI informed me that the investigation was killed before it could even start by Mr. Yates.

They were not going to investigate if Yates would not prosecute.

I re-drafted and re-flied the complaint in 2005. I also consulted the Randolph County Sheriff’s Department and the Asheboro Police Department, and pleaded for an investigation . . . or a referral to the SBI/Attorney General.

Still, the DA's office would not even speak to me.

I also filed complaints against both the hospital lawyers (for suborning perjury) and my own (gross negligence) with the North Carolina State Bar. The complaints were blown off.

Despite the fact that Randolph Hospital is a “non-profit” institution and a good portion of its funding (grants and certificates-of-need and such) is channeled through NCDHHS . . . and the NC Attorney General is quite literally NCDHHS’s lawyer . . . Roy Cooper’s office had thus far that is has no jurisdiction in the case.

Incredibly, the argument seems to be that NO REGULATORY BODY has any direct jurisdiction over the affairs of non-profit hospitals in North Carolina - and even if they do, they don't care. And even after the Mike Nifong debacle, ordinary citizens have no recourse if a District Attorney wants to be a stone wall and will not do the right thing.

And I am sorry, that just does not fly.

In summary, (1) I was never afforded ANY KIND of due process by the Randolph Hospital or its Board of Directors (2) my civil case was settled under false pretenses and in bad faith, and (3) as a former public servant, my criminal/felony case against two “non-profit” executives has NEVER been properly investigated by the state.

It is as if none of this ever happened and I do not exist. Every door has been slammed in my face.

The Asheboro Pediatrics website debuted in 2004 (it has not been updated or modified in several years).

This blog, Dr. J’s Housecalls, debuted in 2005 . . . with regular posting beginning in 2006.

In this era of healthcare reform, and despite all of the issues this one case touches upon (healthcare fraud and abuse, administrative corruption, poor oversight of non-profits by Boards of Directors and regulatory bodies, bad-faith peer review, tort reform, targeting medical whistle-blowers for destruction by labeling them “disruptive”) at no time have our local newspapers . . . or prominent bloggers . . . deemed the story worthy of the attention of an investigative journalist.

And I just don't understand that (or maybe I do), for if ever there was a case that demonstrated the fundamental failure of government-run medicine to oversee anything or accomplish ANY of its goals, this one is it. Giving the government MORE to do will NOT work.

The bold-faced lies of Randolph Hospital executives, Robert Morrison and Steven Eblin cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars, a hometown Pediatric practice that I worked like a dog to build (in short, my dream) and years of my life.

According to some, I'm supposed to get over it and move on.

But I cannot do that. If the case does not see some kind of forward movement by Christmas of this year, I am planning to pursue legal action against the N.C. Medical Board, NC and/or USDHHS, and JCAHO (for gross regulatory negligence) next year.

The premise of that lawsuit will be very simple . . . if the state is going to require duties of doctors . . . if you really want them to do right by patients . . . you must protect them. The state of North Carolina doesn't.

Ironically the same DA’s office that has blown off my case against Randolph Hospital since 2003 - and has thus far refused to refer it where it needs to go for a proper investigation, will be handling the cyber-stalking case against Jeff Martin.

I'm not supposed to be concerned about that.

I trust that this narrative (as short and concise as I can make the story due to its complexity) helps outsiders/new readers understand why I’m just a little torqued-off, and not-at-all inclined to let Randolph Hospital or its executives off the hook.

I also trust I have not sounded like a “lunatic”, “wack-job” or “booger-eating moron”.

There it is. In 2110 words. I'm quite sure some of the blogging "big guns" in Greensboro will snicker and spit. But you know what? I don't care what they think anymore. I've climbed out of their box and it's rather liberating.

And/so the break begins. If there are any updates to the cyber-stalking case they will be posted.

Comments are closed.

Afternoon Update:

Got a nice "comment" on this post from a good friend in the Inbox this afternoon . . . responding to the argument that I should drop all efforts to hold Randolph Hospital accountable.

Yes, a case can be made that it is past history, and that you should move on. But . . . on the other hand, I will say that your situation was a bit more out of the ordinary, and that you were made to suffer far deeper, and grossly unfair consequences as a result of you doing what you felt was the honorable thing to do.

For what my vote is worth, you can keep on writing about it. You've earned it. An injustice was done, and it hasn't been atoned for. It may never be a wrong that is righted, but at least your actions will always cause them some measure of discomfort. People such as those depend on their victims caving in and disappearing.

And, Mary Helen Johnson doesn't do disappearing acts does she?

Wednesday Afternoon (12/9) update: Ed Cone/Word-Up (who has a vested interest in playing the "Fec" business down) has a post up on this post. And I've weighed in. I'm going back on blogging-break and back to work. The boys can talk amongst themselves.

I'm sure someone will "wish me well" (again). The thing about wishing is that it doesn't make it so.