Late Night with Conan O'brien, err, I mean pre KVHD board meeting night with Laura Hart

I just heard the bell in the tower chime midnight, so I thought I would hurry your invitation to the Kern Valley Healthcare District Board meeting, tonight, at 5:30 pm in the hospital cafeteria. (Oh, yeah, I guess we don't have a bell in a tower, it must have been the boxing match on TV; round 12.)

Dear Neighbors and rubberneckers:

You are cordially invited to attend our hospital board meeting this evening in the cafeteria where food will not be served, but other things might.

Please be advised if you wish to speak, you must contain all outbursts to three minutes: Those are the rules and we must follow them. If you don't then it's a Brown Act violation. No, wait, I mean, a frowned upon act.

And if anyone threatens you with physical violence, ask them to bring out the new psychiatrist. (Hey, its not like it hasn't happened before. Here in the valley threats are treated as acceptable.)

If you watch a movie, a lot can happen in three minutes while you're in the kitchen or the bathroom. Then you have to interrupt and ask everybody "what happened?"

Things I can do in three minutes: zero to 60, with no loss of fuel economy.

So, feel free to come on out and see for yourself. We have some good people here in administration who are trying to change things. They came into a situation, they need time to see if there is hope, and what they have to do to bring that hope for honesty and health "care" back to the community and inside the hospital with employees who still suffer from PTSD paranoia.

There are new people on the board of directors who are working to uphold their obligation to the community as well. My only issue would be that I want to hear them sharing more information, offering up ideas and asking more questions of staff.

It's no easy job over there at the hospital right now. So many old issues have to be sorted out, and yet the district must maintain a certain standard of care while it addresses a multitude of obstacles which hinder its progress.

These current obstacles are a direct result of poor decisions made in the past.

The new administrators and new board members need our support. (The others who created this mess need something different, I guess I'll handle that department.)

Tonight we have news about the seismic report on the hospital done through the Office of Statewide Healthcare Planning and Development (OSHPD). We will need to be fixing some things and getting contractors again, I suspect.
Which means we need money. (Trim from the top)

CEO, Tim McGlew, talked about getting new doctors up here to utilize the operating room at the Finance commit me meeting last Wednesday. I'm sure we will hear more on this. These doctors need to make commitments to this community, not just come up here when they can squeeze us in.

We have heard over the years about many doctors who would work up here, but they come and go. Recruiting needs to be foremost and the hospital needs someone, preferrably not Human Resources, but maybe others who could convince some doctors that we're worth it up here.

I'm sure we must have studied how much we have lost by not utlizing surgery, and after care services, for those in the valley.

Remember, this was going on before anyone knew what a SNF, sniff, was or what it did.

And the pharmacy, a sore spot, with no medication to prescribe at this point to bring back the customers and the potential dollars. Why can't we make money? CFO, Chet Beedle blames it on changes in Medicare Part D.

There are no shortage of issues, and the best place to get your information is directly from the horse's mouth by coming to the meeting. Oh, I'll write it up, but you really need to attend to get a feel for the plight of the Kern Valley Healthcare District.
(It's on the endangered species list)

And we're still on indictment watch: as soon as we know, you will know. Favorite place the blog and check in for breaking news. We will of course go to the courthouse for pictures and documents.

We will be covering "sticky three" board member, Bob Jamison's radio show last week with Ken Mettler. Jamison apparently attended the Bakersfield "healthcare reform" town hall meeting, but didn't show up here in Isabella for our get together. (Were we shunned for people out of town who don't know you?)

That story will eventually be covered on our new blog, "Your Government, Your Problem: an owner's manual."

(I'd like to do an interview with Mettler myself, I'll let you know if he's "game" or not. There could be some fun fireworks there don't you think?)