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Regular readers have seen many articles, including mine, about Hazel Hawkins Hospital and may wonder why so much print space is being devoted to it. For me, the importance is black and white; my wife and I do not want to live in a community that does not have a hospital.
From a civic engagement point of view, however, the situation is more dramatic. In general, we are only hearing from one person at the hospital: the interim CEO. Even in meetings, the five elected officials are mostly silent, in board meetings that are always the shortest I have ever witnessed.
What bugs me the most is that everyone involved is getting paid lots of money or rewards and we have no insight as to what they are doing except getting paid and paid a lot.
A cynic could arrive at the conclusion that the $10 million line of credit they are giving the Interim CEO carte blanche on could really be just a way to have everyone that is getting fat on the hospital to continue. By way of example, between December and April, the hospital has paid at least $777,673.92 to its financial advisor. When I received copies of the invoices, all the information for what services were performed was redacted.
That’s on top of the over $300,000 salary and benefits that folks at the top are each being paid and the health insurance benefits given to board members.
Why are we still paying all these people huge amounts of our money?
What I also pick up on is that we seemingly keep getting recycled good news, but we still end up concluding that the worst is going to actually happen because nothing is changing. The hospital also keeps touting how 10 parties signed non-disclosure agreements, a fact that is pretty stale at this point. How many are conducting due diligence and are preparing offers to the residents of San Benito County to rescue our hospital?
The latest is the state may have loans available and Hazel Hawkins Hospital may benefit. It’s just like the finding-a-buyer scenario. How about taking the steps to make us a successful operating entity so that we can actually pay back a loan or be a desirable acquisition candidate?