Do no harm: Doctor calls on EPH board to demand CEOs resignation

I recently tried to contact both David Batey and Corey Workman after the last board meeting and neither returned my calls or emails. So, I am choosing to go public with my concerns.

We could communicate more effectively if the members of the Estes Park Health board would make themselves available to their constituents. But they turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the taxpayers of the Park Hospital District.

Recently I had the opportunity to see the musical Hamilton at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. The play spotlights the intellect, vision, and character of this prolific and gifted communicator. It was provocative and made me think about what Hamilton might have to teach us as we navigate our current hospital crisis and pending association with UCHealth.

The contrast between Alexander Hamilton and both the board and administration of Estes Park Health administration could not be greater.

Hamilton was honest, almost to a fault, and transparent to the point that he subjected himself to harsh criticism after a glaring and humiliating mistake. He was a champion of coalition building and he believed in fairness and formalized grievance procedures. He promoted high ethical standards and likely would have promoted the protection of whistleblowers. And, if he had been in a position of leadership at EPH, I think he would have worked collaboratively with medical and hospital staff leadership and shunned authoritarian practices.

So far, I do not believe any of our senior EPH administrators or board members are going to give Hamilton any serious competition. Regrettably, this hospital administration and board leadership appears to have a moral compass more closely aligned with King George III.

In an opinion piece I wrote last month in the Estes Valley Voice, “It is past time for change at EPH,” I articulated serious issues currently plaguing our hospital including a pattern of behavior to deny and dismiss the concerns raised and to dismiss the people bringing voice to the problems.

These concerns relate to a toxic work environment, financial mismanagement, decline in quality of care, loss of market share, and the deteriorating community faith in this hospital.

Physicians take an oath to “do no harm.” The continued presence of the hospital administration for even another day serves to harm our hospital and our community.

The hospital board should demand the CEO’s resignation and not continue to prop him up to give what are book reports about strategic planning at board meetings.

Two images come to mind: Nero is fiddling while Rome is burning, and the emperor has no clothes on.

Since I wrote the opinion editorial, I have received a great deal of public support for speaking out. There has been strong criticism of the CEO and the Director of Nursing. Many in the community agree with me, but many people are concerned about speaking out. We live in a small town. As a rule, most people do not like to rock the boat.

While I have heard many supportive comments about taking a stand, there has been no response from the administration or the board.

A reasonable conclusion is that the board’s failure to make any course corrections or to defend its behavior is a tacit acceptance that my criticisms have merit.

Every one of the Park Hospital District board members is intelligent, accomplished, and very well educated. The difficulty the board seems to be struggling with is a combination of inattentiveness, poor judgement, and flaccidity.

If members of the community attended the EPH board meetings, they would see that the board members do not meet as a deliberative body to engage publicly in meaningful discussion and decision making. They have met over the past two years in dozens upon dozens of secret executive session meetings, and when they gather for the monthly board meetings, it is a performative recital.

Their behavior reminds one of a collection of docile Stepford Wives nodding their heads and rubber stamping the words of their board chair.

Their board members’ collective indifference to the fate of this hospital is bewildering and a violation of their fiduciary responsibility to both this hospital and this community.

Their failure to address, or even acknowledge, the concerns of the hospital employees, physicians, staff, and community members is irresponsible and despicable.

The continued presence of this hospital administration for even another day will further harm our hospital and our community. The Park Hospital District needs to take action now to start the healing at the hospital and facilitate the transition to a UCHealth administration.

I ask the Estes Valley community to keep up the pressure on the Estes Park Health board of directors and administration. Estes Park Health stakeholders need to encourage the people of our community to speak out to our neighbors, in the press, and at the board meetings: if you see something say something.

There will be two board seats open in the spring and the community needs concerned citizens who are independent thinkers and who believe in transparency in elected governing boards to stand for election.

As Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel said “the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” Nobel laureate, Martin Luther King, Jr. said “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”  And Noel laureate Desmond Tutu said “if you are neutral in situations of injustice you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

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