Bob Morrison, Randolph Hospital And Mental Health: "Dead In The Water"

I think my summer break may wind up being more about popping up about once a week or so to comment on stuff that I just cannot let pass without commentary, and then diving back under cover.  A friend sent me such a story today.
It's from the Courier Tribune, so I can't link it, and must summarize.

Randolph Hospital's over-$700,000 year man, Robert Morrison . . . the guy who let his minions run a homegrown Pediatrician out-out-on-a-rail for saving a baby's life - and then sued her for telling the truth - and then swindled her in civil Court of fair restitution for the horrible things he put her through - by (among other things) lying repeatedly under Oath about the "confidentiality" of his books and salaries (see the sidebar, folks) . . . appeared before the Randolph County Commissioners Monday night begging for money.

And the Bobber didn't just want extra money - he wanted someone else's money (typical for Bob).

Bob wants $298,777 from the County to offset the cost of providing care to the seriously mentally-ill at his hospital.  We'll get to what that "care" entails in a couple of paragraphs.

This is in addition to $100,000 that Randolph will get to help pay for "past construction" at the hospital.

Bob wants the money to come from the money that Randolph County gives to Sandhills Medical Center - to offset their cost of caring for the county's severely and long-term mentally-ill . . . something that Randolph Hospital cannot/does not do (Bob was too busy running off doctors and building glitzy cancer centers to care about those people), and currently "dumps" on Sandhills.

(I've blogged on Bob's grandstanding with Sandhills before.)

But, as is the case almost everywhere in North Carolina . . . in the wake of the abject disaster that was (ex-Governor and convicted felon) Mike Sleazely's mental-heatlh-care "reform" . . . and in a bad economy that presents a whole lot of unique challenges for mental health . . . Sandhills' doors overflow.

Psychiatrists are also at the low end of the medical food chain in terms of reimbursement - and I expect providing night & weekend MD coverage can be problematic.  And/so all that "overflow" gets to spend the night - or many nights - being "baby-sitted" in the Emergency Department until a proper bed on a psych unit can be found.  These patients take up bed space in the ED.  But they're not getting defninitive psychiatric care in there.

(I know this because one of my many Locums assignments since being run-out-of-town-on-a-rail for saving-a-baby's-life involved working in a very-big-city Pediatric Emergency Department.  I actually was invited back to work there several times.  It totally negates the Morrison/Eblin mantra that Dr. Mary Johnson was some kind of crazy banshee - and difficult to work with - as opposed to say, tin-god OB-Gyns who had affairs with staff and aborted their own children.  Maybe, just maybe, Dr. Mary Johnson simply needed a professional environment that did not involve continually banging her head against thick brick walls of mill-town arrogance, sloth, greed, and/or ignorance.)

This is NOT a unique situation.  Bob & his NON-PROFIT hospital is NOT special.  His ED doctors are NOT martyrs for some kind of cause - certainly not in the sense that I was back in 1998 - when Bob made the whistle-blower EAT her whistle and the state & Federal governments looked the other way (while Randolph Hospital weilded the local legal system like some kind of sick weapon).

You wanna talk about PTSD?  I can.  It's a shame when the local hospital revels in trying to break people.

(While we're at it, you must also remember that Bob, as a "non-profit" hospital CEO, supported the sale of alcohol, a legal drug ripe for abuse by those who might have difficulty coping, in Asheboro.  It ranks right up there in the "great moves" for the health and well-being of Randolph County in Bob's book of greatest hits while CEO of Randolph.)

The best part of the Courier's article was Bob's rationale for taking Sandhill's share of funding.  The money, you see, should go to the people/institutions who actually do the work.

It's all for "the patients" you see.  It's not about the money Bob thinks he should make babysitting them.  Never mind that, in addition to years of treating doctors like pawns on some warped chessboard, he was too busying building fancy cancer centers Asheboro didn't really need . . . and that his "vision" of utopia-in-a-small-town did not include caring for the seriously mentally-ill.

Out of sight (to Sandhills), out of mind.  Bob thinks about the seriously mentally-ill in the same fashion that the citizens of Greensboro regard their trash.  It's something for someone else to worry about.  And when he does have to worry about it, well, he deserves top dollar.

Now Bob's rationale (i.e. the money should go to the people actually doing the work) was good for a mid-morning coffee sinus wash, as that argument never moved Bob and his "team" of executives before.  As I recall, the mantra way-back-when was that "good Pediatricians are a dime-a-dozen".  Back in the day, as employed physicians, our weekends, our evenings, our very lives and souls BELONGED to him.

I expect it's no better for any psychiatrist unfortunate enough to cross his path.

The Courier says that the request is "dead-in-the-water".  The state will not allow the money to be split.  And the TRUTH is, Sandhills is actually doing most of the heavy-lifting - for several counties.

I'm thinking that the locals are fed up with this grandstanding crap . . . they can see right through Bob's self-serving BS . . .  and that our usually-thick-as-thieves local politicians are even starting to clue in (well, except for Harold Brubaker - who let the N.C. Hospital Association run a full-page ad last week broadcasting that he was their best kept man - is there any wonder why the fat cat would not represent me when I needed representing?).

I'm also thinking that Robert Morrison epitomizes the stereotype of the morally-bankrupt, greed-mongering "Wall Street" CEO that crippled this nation.  He's overpaid for what he does/where he does it by several-hundred thousand dollars per year.  He's bully and a tyrant in a fancy suit who has suffered little or no oversight from his Board of Directors as he monopolized and manipulated the medical landscape for his own profit (instead of the community good) - as he literally ripped apart people's lives.  His less-than-honorable methods have glided under-the-public-radar (all thanks to the Courier and his pals at the Courthouse).  He's gotten rich taking credit for the work of others . . . while skimming his mega-bucks off the top.

(But hey.  Let John Robinson and Ed Cone keep telling you that Dr. Mary's story-of-hometown-woe has NOTHING to do with the issues of the day.)

I'm thinking the money should come out of HIS salary and benefit package . . . and be given to the people actually doing the work.

I'm actually thinking that if the Randolph County Commissioners really want to take a "stand" for patients, against the system that Bob now abhors (you know, the one that made him rich), they should demand that the Randolph Hospital Board of Directors conduct a thorough review of Bob's despicable/illegal behavior over the years . . . suggesting that if even half of Dr. Mary Johnson has alleged is true, Bob Morrison and his left-hand man, Steven Eblin, should be FIRED for cause, and prosecuted for PERJURY.

That would send a very nice "message" indeed to those who might profit on the backs of the poor and indigent and mentally-ill (aka, "the underserved").

I'm not holding my breath - because when it comes to "the right people", those Rotarian civic virtues  - and Christian values - just are not what they're cracked up to be in Asheboro.

Back on break.