What can the small community of Reedley teach the Kern River Valley...

The small community of Reedley, California, southeast of Fresno, had a rude awakening more than a week ago, when their Sierra Kings District hospital, CEO, Pamela Ott, was charged with eight counts of elder abuse in a case that started in another rural community, right here in the Kern River Valley.

Ott, who was the former CEO/Administrator for the Kern Valley Healthcare District, resigned her position in May of 2007, as the skilled nursing facility was on the verge of collapse, and placed in "immediate jeopardy" by public health officials at least twice before she left.

(Will be bringing more quotes and pix from the May 2007 board meeting. After watching the video again, I noticed more than I did the first time around. And boy, I bet most of that isn't in the minutes. Then I was still fishing for information, now I can see clearly looking back on this video. Hopefully, we can have that up next.)

Sorry about this community of Reedley, but we could not get the support from the citizenery, media or the government, in particular the Grand Jury, to reel in our people who were responsible for short staffing our eldery residents care, while at the same time allowing a nursing director to order new medications without contacting family members, ignoring employee complaints, and finally denying any wrongdoing.

Instead, we sent off Pamela Ott, with some sort of glowing reference from the chairman of the board at the time, Brad Armstrong, and Sierra Kings District ended up with her and her skeletons in the closet.

In fact, Ott was "under fire" when she left, as employees began to get brave and talk about what had happened. I was right on her heels, but she ran, protected by the phalanx of support inside the hospital.

This afternoon, I spoke, with Sierra Kings District board President, Trish Johnson, and she confirmed that Ott is on an unpaid "administrative leave" until the court hearings Nov. 3 and 4.

Johnson said, "Pam Ott is on administrative leave, we've been looking at this situation, so we're far from done. I can only tell you because we are taking this very seriously, that the outcomes are not definite yet."

"So with that said," Johnson added, "we're doing what we can to keep the hospital from running rampant with rumors. There will always be disgruntled people as you well know, we don't contend to hide anything."

I asked the board President if the charges against Ott came as a surprise.
"Yes, it did. The board learned about it the Tuesday after Labor Day and we did not have any idea, we knew she had to go to Bakersfield for a court appearance, but we did not know what for."

Johnson concluded by saying that the board will be reassessing the situation with Ott in November.

The local newspaper and website," The Reedley Exponent," had some excellent coverage with a story regarding Ott, along with an opinion piece to knock your socks off. There were also some well written letters to the editor which reflect the situation at Sierra Kings District.

In editor, Cheryl Lingo's article, she quotes the board President as saying that they could not have known of Ott's past prior to hiring her.

(quote from Exponent)
"Johnson said the board was unaware of Ott's problems when she was interviewed for the CEO position two years ago. Johnson said she believes the board did its due diligence in confirming Ott."Every organization has its internal struggles, and there's no way we could have uncovered this sort of thing," she said."

In a punched up opinion piece, by Fred Hall, no holds barred, he tells it like it is about Ott resigning and even the board members resigning.

Unequivocally, in everyday language, Ms. Ott you should quit immediately for the good of the entire community and staff of the facility where you are employed. It’s simply a matter of doing the right thing at the right time for the right reasons!

Hall kept rolling, and I'm going to give another sample here that may give some here in the Kern River Valley and at the healthcare district something think about.

In the interim, we can only plead with those who were placed in charge of this tremendously important community asset to do your jobs and get things cleaned up. If you’re incapable or unwilling, then get out of the way! This hospital is a public entity and not something to inflate the egos of a few or enrich others who show such incompetence in dispatching their fiduciary duties.

Here are a few comments from the letters to the editor section:

It is time for a change in the hospital’s leadership and time for the current Board to be held accountable for their poor decisions and inattention to fundamental issues.

We also have just become aware that the hospital's board of directors was fully knowledgeable concerning these problems when the contract was offered to Ms. Ott. It seems apparent that Mrs. Trish Johnson, board president, chose to overlook or at least play down the implications of these legal problems which were well known in Kern County prior to the employment of Ms. Ott.

So many of these comments are familiar to us in the valley, as we have struggled with certain board members, and administrators, such as our chief Financial Officer, Chet Beedle for several years now.

Go to the Reedley Exponent and take a look a their stories and reactions. They are planning to bring in extra help so they can rightly provide media oversight so the community of Reedley doesn't remain in the dark.

The Sierra Kings District board will being interviewing for an "interim" CEO and CFO as Barbara Jennings was terminated according to the board President.

Though Johnson resisted talking about the situation with the Cheif Financial Officer, she said the two situations were "unrelated."

However, in the news article from the Exponent, there appears to be some relationship:

Johnson maintains there is no connection between Ott's being placed on administrative leave and the firing of former CFO Barbara Jennings. "Barbara Jennings wasn't fulfilling her duties here at the hospital. These two things are not connected." Johnson confirmed that Jennings was brought on board by Ott.

http://www.reedleyexponent.com/