Shame on WCHS

Shame on WCHS
Dear Editor,
In response to last weeks article regarding WCHS financial impact caused by the pandemic, the community, current and former employees want you to know what’s been happening at WCHS. Their concerns range from mistreatment of employees, unfair hiring practices, raising prices, and over spending. 
As reported, WCHS has been struggling financially for several years… long before COVID-19. So now, in the middle of this pandemic, there is talk of furloughs, cutting hours, layoffs, and even talk of closing the ER and hospital if federal COVID funding is not secured. Yes… we’ve heard your excuses, “all rural hospitals are in the same desperate situation.” But had you listened to your people and this community maybe WCHS would have had a better chance of surviving this unforeseen pandemic. 
Bad decisions made by the CEO and some board members have contributed to this poor fiscal condition. In January 2019, members of the admin team bravely came to you with concerns of negative financial indicators, which they had been tracking for months. They tried to warn you that WCHS was in a decline. But you didn’t listen; in fact you scolded them, and promptly continued your spending. Well, in hindsight, it appears they were right. 
You’ve spent all cash reserves, all CD’s are gone, you can’t get a line of credit, and you keep raising prices to shore up bloated budgets and foolish spending habits. Yet no talk of how to bring in revenue. Well shame on you for not paying attention to the high cost of the unbridled use of expensive contract staff because you allowed management to bully good and loyal employees into quitting. Shame on you for ignoring exit interviews telling you there were problems. Shame on you for not paying attention to declining financial data and benchmarks. Shame on you for ignoring the community and employees who verbalized concerns upon deaf ears, and shame on you for ignoring responsible common sense spending. 
Wasn’t doing a massive and expensive remodel enough? No. Every room and office had to have brand new furniture. The remodel allowed for more offices but then you had to pay back Medicare over a million dollars due to decreased patient related space. We pay 1/4 million a year for the management contract, shouldn’t the CEO have anticipated this? You purchased an $180,000 Service Excellence Program to improve customer service but some complain that the CEO won’t let them use the things they’ve learned. Did you have to purchase a very expensive new computer electronic medical recording system right after a costly remodel? This new system slowed down revenue to a crawl, impacted productivity and decreased cash flow. You starved revenue producing departments of adequate staffing that could have brought in more revenue. Then you purchased a new very expensive mammogram unit that operates in the red; opened up a retail pharmacy that’s over staffed, bought a house that isn’t used, resurfaced an entire street behind the hospital; and attended many elaborate conference trips over the years. You wrote off millions as uncollectible. You tried to silence your employees who dared to speak out by creating “new” policies that threatened disciplinary action for not using chain of command protocols. In other words, don’t you dare talk to a board member or anyone else outside of the facility about your concerns or you could lose your job! It was called the gag order. 
We want you to know… this is our hospital. We live here, we work here, and we are watching. If WCHS fails, it will be “primarily” due to mismanagement… not COVID-19. 
What’s been done is done and in the past. Hopefully, the board will learn from these mistakes going forward. God willing WCHS will survive. Our county and 180 employees depend on it. 
 
— Kathleen Jones