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Do you want to live in a community that has a hospital? If it’s not important to you, then let me save you the time of reading anything else below. If it is important to you, read on.
We elect people to represent us, the residents of San Benito County. We do not elect leaders to represent themselves or management, or the employees of the entity for which they hold office. I do not get the feeling we are being represented by the current board of Hazel Hawkins Hospital.
All indications are that the hospital is in deep, deep trouble, and the board apparently does not know what to do. Aside from the hospital’s recent announcements to potentially file for bankruptcy, and that they will be able to make payroll on December 9, the board is silent in meetings and non-responsive to my inquiries. I have called and left messages, and sent e-mails. Others I have talked to, even if they indicate they have talked to hospital officials, report there is no plan. They agree that apparent paralysis has set in.
It pains me to write in the close-knit community that we live, but I believe the board should resign. What good are they if they are not going to agendize the crisis or call back constituents? Putting out press releases stating they are meeting with various individuals without any indication of the end plan is as insufficient as not discussing the crisis in a board meeting and not talking to voters. I’m close enough to these board members and management, that anyone of them could reach out to me to say “We hear you. We’re working on it. We just have to keep things down low for now until we have contracts signed.” But inspite of calls to management, e-mail to the board president, and voicemails to board members at the telephone numbers publicly available, I have heard nothing.
I have talked to many people about the situation, and they are as concerned as I.
This is what a new board should do:
- Describe to the public, the importance of the hospital to the community. Get them on board with saving it.
- Assess whether management is competent or not. This is a Board’s most important duty.
- Start meeting with the appropriate people at the various school districts, water districts, the County of San Benito and the City of Hollister, as employers, and any other entity that has a large number of employees who currently cannot use Hazel Hawkins Hospital, because of it’s lack of a contract with Blue Cross/Anthem or because Hazel Hawkins Hospital’s going to go out of business.
- The purpose of the above is to get all the people, which is in the thousands, who can’t use the hospital today to be put in a position that they can.
- The way that would come about that I can think of is to get all of the employees to agree to switch plans to one that does reimburse the hospital adequately, like Blue Shield, from what I understand.
- Even at the huge inconvenience, and the higher cost to all of the entities, it is probably in everybody’s benefit to do so. I am sure we as a community can come together and figure out where sacrifices have to be made to save the hospital.
Why do we need a new board? Because seemingly something fishy is going on. It is simply not right that we have silence on so many fronts. Elected leaders have to be responsive to constituents, and these folks currently in office or not. Board members that take their responsibilities seriously will evaluate and take action unlike the current board. Also, generally speaking when an entity goes in to crisis, especially bankruptcy, the people it put it into such a position are rarely the ones that are operating it on the way out.
I don’t wanna disparage any individual members. I know so many of them and other hospital officials, it pains me to write this. But last weekend, my wife and I discussed this and we agreed we do not want to live in a community that does not have a hospital. I have to assume that is what is on the line.