On Monday, Novant CEO Paul Wiles will be at Prince William hospital to meet and greet employees. We will have a special report Monday morning with questions we'd like to present to Mr. Wiles.
In the meantine, here is an open letter -- one version of many as all members and supporters are encouraged to write -- that has been sent to local media and our government representatives:
------------------
Please find within the following potential topics of discussion for the meet and greet with Novant CEO Paul Wiles this Monday, April 20, on the fourth floor of the hospital at 10 AM.
In a recent memo, PWHS CEO Michael Schwartz questioned our motives and indicated that perhaps we are trying to advocate or representing a union in some capacity, but this is not true. We are local, non-profit (our blog has received nearly 5000 'hits' but it does not generate any money), non-union (and we're pretty much all old school GOP people and VERY anti-union in our personal politics), we are grassroots and most importantly we are too scared to go public with our IDs because we know it would cost us our jobs. One only has to search the Post's archives for articles about PWHS to see what Schwartz is capable of and the fact that during his tenure there has been a huge rate of executive turnover. There is already an email / blog witch-hunt in effect at hospital, wasting time and money.
He's also claimed we've written a lot of incorrect information, but won't say exactly what of the items we've presented to the public are not accurate.
Our platform remains:
PWHS does not need to be sold, it is only being sold and in the state that its in both financially and morale-wise is because Schwartz had no plan B when the INOVA merger failed. On the blog you'll find a link to an article in Reuters stating that PWHS management claims our poor financial shape is due to the failed merger.
According to reports from corporate insiders that have not been denied, execs like Schwartz are getting a year of severance if they go due to the sale. They'll also receive a bonus of six months of their salary if they stick around to help the transition, pre-severance. No one is receiving cost of living or performance raises at PWHS in 2009 due to the economy. We think these severance packages and stay bonuses are wrong and need to be exposed and owned up to. EVERYONE, since anyone lose their job due to a merger should have some kind of similar plan in place, whether their job loss will occur right off the bat post-sale or after the transition is complete.
We believe Novant would not be doing this if they were not SURE there was money to be made. Money PWHS should be able to find a way to make on its own, as have ALL of our non-profit neighbors, Potomac, Mary Washington and ESPECIALLY Fauquier...
We believe this is also mainly about Novant expanding our freestanding ER and building a new hospital in Haymarket, in order to compete with Fauquier. Ironic since one only needs to do a Google news search on Novant and find that they're constantly in the news for challenging other NC health systems'
expansions.
The details, conditions and terms of this 'partnership' (SALE!) are going on behind closed doors, as happened with INOVA. "Partnership" and "Merger" are euphemisms that PWHS is feeding the public. This will be a SALE, an acquisition.
MOST IMPORTANTLY: We believe Virginia citizens, Prince William patients and local employees should not be under the thumb of an out of state healthcare giant (5th largest in the country, not counting the 27% ownership of the 7 for-profit HMA hospitals they have a piece of in the Carolinas) to the tune of $200 million dollars.
The fact that the hospital will keep its name and a local board is pure window dressing, throwing the community and lesser-informed employees a bone. The board serves at the CEO's leisure. There is no true accountability or oversight at PWHS, there will be even less when it's an out of state corporate CEO that the puppet board will be answering to.
We hope you can help the public know about what's really going on and perhaps be able to publicly ask some of the hard questions that we can't, as we still depend on our hard work at our independent community hospital to feed our families.
Thanks for your time and looking out for the community.
---------------------
PWHS in the news, reader comment references Save PWHS
http://www.fauquier.com/news/2009/apr/14/looming-crisis-skilled-nursing-shortage/
Novant in the news, as mentioned in the letter above:
http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2009/apr/15/novant-appeals-ok-cmc-northeast-patient-tower-conc/
be sure to check the "Hospital Building Booms" blurb to the left of main article to see the health systems Novant is challenging:
http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/1489026.html
Don't forget to check back in Monday morning!!
Don't stop at just sending this letter, this post and link to this blog to local government and media - also send it to others that PWHS lack of vision and greed and Novant's ambition could injure, meaning the other area healthcare systems! Let the people at INOVA and Fauquier, Potomac and Mary Washington Medicorps know what's going on. Surely Novant will take the same tactics with their neighbors up here as they do in their home state, and our sister local non profits needs to be aware of what the result of PWHS's failure to exist on its own it trying to introduce into our community.
ReplyDeleteYou know people, there is such a thing at allowing a community hospital to grow at its own pace. The housing market here is DEAD and the population boom for this area is OVER for the time being, and the PWHS CEO always pointing to this area's growth is a joke at this stage of the economy.
We COULD have grown like Fauquier and all of our other neighbors if PWH "leadership" wasn't so busy trying to sell to keep up with the area's growth which in reality stopped when the economy began crashing, and not coming up with a plan of their own.
In closing, I'd like to thank my supervisors at PWHS and the PWHS Public Relations department and their PWHNEWS email address that no one responds at for not answering me and making me feel marginilized and angry like someone in my position does not matter or deserve attention or truth. I know you all know who I am and I dare you to fire me for speaking my mind. I dare you to reduce my hours or get me in trouble for something else like you're doing to other employees you suspect of being against a sale. This is what you get.
Off to a good start, but more needs to be done. I'll certainly write a letter, but what else can I do?
ReplyDelete