The Witches Of Randolph County (North Carolina)

Author's Note:  This post has been updated (twice) - see below.

The subject of Thursday evening's post, Henry Millis "Buzz" Armfield, Jr. of the Asheboro Armfield's e-mailed me over the weekend.

He related a story about how he and his wife were awakened at around midnight Friday night by their faithful hound-dog, and alerted to the presence of a bat in their bedroom (it apparently got in through an open back door in the garage where Buzz had been working).  After ensuring the safety of his beloved Missus, Mr. Armfield covered his neck, donned some work gloves, captured the frightened creature and set it free:

My hope is that it (the bat) will return to witches in Randolph County from whence it came, and perhaps tell them that I don't fluster so easily, nor am I all that bad of a chap considering that the bat was no doubt sent to suck the last of my lifeblood, or more Armfield money from me.

The e-mail had me howling in laughter.

This weekend, we also spoke of Buzz's hope that coming forward with his own impressions of me/my ordeal . . . and the way things are done by the powers-that-be in our hometown . . . and at the hospital . . . and (especially) in our local legal system, would end once-and-for-all any questions about my credibility (or character/sanity/intelligence) posed by the Cones-of-the-Cones and the Polinskis and the Robinsons and the Rochs.

Of course, we both hope that, because of the post (which seems to have rattled some bat cages), "the women" Buzz left behind in Randolph County in the Department of Child Support Enforcement will be safe from retribution from the powers-that-be . . . or intimidation on the part of a certain-lawyer-who-is-dead-to-me. 

(8/31 Evening Addendum:  Alas, it was a vain hope.  Buzz morosely reported this afternoon that one of "the women", Ginger Hunt, was fired today.  All of the classic lowball tactics were used . . . push someone into a corner . . . make accusations - that colleagues know are trumped-up . . . blame the blind-sided employee when they lash back . . . then drop the ax and show no mercy to a single Mother with a child and a Randolph County mortgage.  And now the County is down to two experienced Child Support Enforcment Agents- from four - which is really great news for the 1600-2000 Randolph County children who lost their advocate and place in line.  "The witches" could almost bottle and brand this poison - and put it in the candied apples of little children - right along with the razor blades. 

Wait.  On second thought, I guess that's exactly what they're doing.  Nothing ever changes in Randolph County's house-of-legal-horrors.) 

It would be even nicer if the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts and our Attorney General's office (rumor has it they have a victims' advocacy division) would WAKE up and start asking some serious questions about the way "justice" is practiced and administered in Randolph County.

I am pleased that Housecalls was here to be of service.  As I've said before, it would have been nice if blogs had been around/so prominent twelve years ago . . . and I had not been so afraid.

In terms of the blogs, Buzz's willingness to come forward and offer his public support has been like an injection of Vitamin B-12 in terms of taking on those who have trampled my good name for sport.  Yesterday at Joe's, I chided Roch:

Funny how, on this very weekend, a man whose family name is on the hospital that "done me wrong" . . . and who has an intimate working knowledge of the Randolph County Court system (he told me flat-out that the DA's office would throw me under the bus on the cyber-stalking case simply because they could - just as your pal, Jeff Martin boasted they would) allowed me to blog on his point-of-view . . . as yet another home-grown child-advocate hosed in Asheboro.

Since you've not held back here, allow me to return in kind: This man coming forward . . . having checked out the facts that that neither you nor Cone nor Robinson (great "citizen journalists" that you all are) could be bothered with . . . does wonders for my credibility and makes you/others-with-their-family-names-on-hospitals look like the hypocritical blow-hard INSECTS you are.

Yes, indeed, chickadees, it's been a helluva ride in the Greensboro blogosphere.  But let's get back to what the sad story of Mary Johnson has meant for Asheboro.

And it's an ugly truth that the higher-ups at the Courier and the Economic Development Corporation - or even our Commerce Secretary - have never wanted to admit . . . much less allow the largely kept-in-the-dark public to consider:  While Dr. Mary Johnson's twelve-year battle with Randolph Hospital has been embarrassing for Randolph Hospital, it's also been very ugly for Asheboro and Randolph County.

It has adversely affected the hospital's reputation amongst doctors throughout the state and beyond (particularly amongst Pediatricians and institutions that train them), as well as its ability to recruit new physicians (as I've said before, short of a regime change, young medical professionals who are needed everywhere - and can go anywhere - are simply not going to choose a place with Randolph Hospital's history to seed their investment or raise their children).

Ergo, in a very real sense, it has negatively affected access to and the quality of medical care for children in Randolph County.

(That was most certainly not my intention when I came home.  The reader might be interested to know that one of the most popular page downloads on this site is the personal statement I included with my Pediatric residency application.  Reading the thing these days makes me want to weep.  For it really does beg one of Buzz Armfield's original questions when we first renewed our acquaintance: HOW can it be that someone who expressed that kind of sentiment going in . . . someone who truly loved her hometown, and gladly went the extra mile . . .  was made to endure what she has - at the hands of people who look at Pediatricians as "a dime a dozen".  And why have those people been allowed to skate away unquestioned, untouched and unscathed?)

The situation has also most assuredly affected the way potential new industries and businesses look at Asheboro & Randolph County . . . as it stands to reason that any part of corporate due diligence involves simple Google searches.

Guess who/what pops up?  A lot.

As Dr. Joe Guarino so eloquently said this weekend in putting up his link to my post on Buzz (it's in blue, just because it's just so damned progressive):  Small town North Carolina no longer has the luxury of chasing away some of its most productive citizens.

Yes, Dr. Mary Johnson fought back . . . with every ounce of her being . . . because what was done to her was beyond wrong and Asheboro is her home.  But she mostly certainly is NOT to blame for the fallout and collateral damage wrought by Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin's poor judgment, lack of foresight, greed, power-mongering and flat-out criminal actions.

And yes, Dr. Mary Johnson was passionate and outspoken in her advocacy for children in Asheboro.  Putting patients first . . . in the middle of what amounted to a back-stabbing snake pit . . . where all the big snakes only cared about profit and what went into their own pockets . . . often put her at odds with an administration that didn't really know what to do with Pediatrics.

But making her choose between her job and a baby's life was taking things WAY too far.  NOTHING Dr. Johnson ever did justified what Randolph Hospital executives dished out (or especially the way they dished it) . . . or what its rubber-stamp Board of Directors (including several prominent doctors still on staff) passively condoned . . . or what the local newspapers buried . . . or what Randolph County's legal system first compounded and then IGNORED for all of seven years.

I've been here in this blogosphere for five years . . . at the invitation of a Greensboro journalist who made a lot of empty promises (spending a lot of that time jumping through hoops for an elitist gang of blow-hard, deep-blue, partisan hypocrites who love to pontificate about accountability, transparency, ethics and "reform") . . . trying to get someone to care.

I've blogged my heart out.  Spilled my guts.  Exposed the darkest parts of my very soul.  Nothing has worked.  The very people in this blogosphere who scream loudest about the need for healthcare "reform" . . . and who express the most confidence in the government's newly-expanded responsibility to police it . . . don't care about what happened to a whistle-blowing doctor in public service for doing the right thing by a critically-ill newborn.

And I just don't get it.  I don't know what it takes to crack these hearts.

None of what happened to me is "relevant" in their book.  Never mind that if the IRS won't do anything about what two "non-profit" executives did to Dr. Mary Johnson in Court, with a whole lot more on their plate now, they're not going to do anything about what hospitals/insurance companies do to YOU.

Never mind that my experience in public service offers irrefutable evidence that Obama's bold new reform legislation is all-but-doomed to failure (because government oversight SUCKS) . . . or that (on a more local level) when it comes to medical and legal ethics - or small town values - Asheboro, North Carolina is a deep, dark black hole.

As an ex-businessman (and in this Internet age), Buzz has never understood Randolph Hospital's smug complacency - or its apparent deeply-held conviction that as an institution, it is above the law - that some people are just better than others and their way must be smoothed while the rest of us rot.  For that matter, neither have I.  From a PR standpoint, it's slow suicide. 

It stands to reason that if anyone running Randolph Hospital actually had more than a few brain cells to rub together . . . or a real nose for "business" (as opposed to "winning"/dominating the landscape at any cost) . . . or indeed, the moral compass that so many-of-them-boast . . . this Hospital and its Board of Directors would have sat down with Dr. Mary Johnson (under the supervision of the DA's or NCAG's office) long ago and worked out a solution that gave her the happy ending & closure she was denied by their executives' perjury, criminal contempt and fraud in 2001.

Of course, sitting down with me . . . and actually talking to me and hearing my side of the story . . . and treating me like a human being . . . SOMETHING THAT IN TWELVE YEARS THIS SMALL TOWN GANG OF WELL-HEELED THUGS NEVER DID (I apologize to anyone sensitive to the use of caps) is an ALIEN CONCEPT to these mill town fat-cats who are so used to handling people like used textiles.

As Buzz once told me, "Mary, you've publicly accused this crowd of everything short of pedophilia and they haven't sued you (again).  That says it ALL to me."

Alas, it doesn't say anything to the John Robinsons and Edward Cones of the local blogosphere . . . journalists who've never looked at the evidence and who think I should just cut my losses, "get over it", "move on" and "just go away".

One more thing.  It ain't about the money (although money is the only language Bob Morrison & Steve Eblin ever understood).  It never has been.  It's been about right and wrong, and the way hospitals in North Carolina (particularly "non-profit" ones) are supposed to treat good/conscientious/hard-working doctors (particularly those in public service) . . . AND (even more importantly) the way the system is supposed to work to protect patients from harm.

It's also about our local & state justice system crawling out of its deep dark corrupt hole and doing right by ALL of its citizens . . . not just Asheboro's "right people".

And/so of right now (and although at this wee-morning hour he doesn't know it), Buzz Armfield-of-the-Asheboro-Armfields has helped convince me that it really is time to stop blogging and spend the next month or so drafting/planning the lawsuit that I have NEVER wanted to file . . . the lawsuit that, if the law actually worked in Randolph County (for anyone but the "right people), I should not have to file . . .

. . . against the state & Federal oversight agencies that never did anything to help one of their own . . . a very good, home-grown Pediatrician . . . far from "a dime a dozen", whose life was turned to crap for doing the right thing by another "ordinary" woman's child.

I don't think any of the agencies involved/named will be smiling with benevolent favor upon Randolph Hospital when it happens.

And, because they have determinedly looked the other way . . . and (as they did with the SBI) have not picked up the phones or done the investigations that this case has SCREAMED for, I think the N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts & N.C. Attorney General's Office are due for a rude wake-up call (ala Nifong).

There WILL be fall-out for Randolph Hospital and Randolph County, and indeed, North Carolina.  Mary Johnson is out to change the Medical Practice Act to protect medical whistle-blowers.

(Yeah, I know.  It might be "crazy" or "stupid" and not the least bit "progressive" to expect the state to actually PROTECT SOMETHING THAT IT ALREADY REQUIRES - sorry to those sensitive to caps - but there you go.)

And if the state of North Carolina cannot own up and do it the easy way, well, we'll do it the hard way.

This good "witch" is firing up her broom and clicking those heels (cool shoes being one of her things).  Bats and flying monkeys beware.

There is certainly no place like home.  You-all have a nice fall.

9/2 Evening Update:  Down East, we've had a busy day battening down for a Hurricane named Earl.  But this morning, I did note that the Courier Tribune (always eager to cover the big butts) featured a story about the Randolph County Budget.  County Manager, Richard Wells, spoke directly to the difficulties caused when the state literally dumped the Department of Child Support Enforcement (12 employees) on the County to fund.  

Wells neglected to own up to the fact that in less than two months, the County's intention to sacrifice agents and gut the Department became crystal clear.  As I've blogged, Buzz Armfield-of-the-Asheboro-Armfields (who saw the writing on the wall) left in disgust.  And yesterday, long-time agent, Ginger Hunt, was fired under what her colleagues characterize as totally-bogus circumstances.  The County offered no severance and stated its intent to fight Hunt's unemployment benefits.

And I'm sorry people.  That's just pure, cheap (dare I say "lean and mean"?) MALICE.

Of course, I wouldn't know anything about that.