"Are they still going to go after the rest of them" one resident asked me....

I am beginning to see that the Kern River Valley is starting to wake up from the somnambulism it seemed to be experiencing in regard to the Kern Valley Healthcare District and its den of iniquities.

Yawn, stretch.

I was asked about the investigation as we have three defendants charged with elder abuse, the newest being the former CEO/Administrator, Pamela Ott, scheduled for court November third and fourth.

Told this inquiring mind that it is my understanding that the investigation is still on-going, which could mean anything really. It could mean that the Department of Justice is sitting back hoping for the fish to jump out of the water right onto their line.

Or it could mean that they are still snooping around, having long hours of round table discussion about how the government could bring justice to the people harmed by the Kern Valley Healthcare District. (Yeah right)

But I was encouraged that the community is seeing what it has needed to see, and is getting true information, rather than two years of the media "dark ages" we have experienced here.

Cronyism

I wanted to clarify something for someone in the media (mediaocrity) who received a blog post of mine in an email from a community member who thought they were helping. This person, trying to leave a news tip, then received a hostile response which was forwarded to me.

"If you are one of Laura Hart's cronies please cease and desist or may need to consult my lawyer"

Anyway, to clarify cronyism to this person it's very simple and basic. It's what we saw at the Kern Valley Healthcare District. Favoritism without regard to qualifications or even ethics or potential damage from this type of practice.

The hospital was and is still plagued by this disease. Thus in the long run it created a highly dangerous situation.

MY ER REPORT

As usual I like to give my personal reports of the hospital, as due to my health, I tend to be there not only with a camera and tape recorder, but more often than I would like, as a patient.

Went to the ER the other day to have somebody see what the could do with my funny looking face, err, actually they couldn't do anything with that, but did try to help me with a few other problems.

While I'm there, my ears perk, and I try to take in all the information I can get from my eavesdropping practice as well as observation.

First things first, what the hell is going on with the staffing? Excuse my language.

Again, I heard the frustration of those who were trying to staff the skilled nursing facility, and there wasn't much of a crew in the ER either.

One very busy nurse seemed to be doing everything. She was multi tasking like nobody I have ever seen. I was amazed she could even remember all the requests from us chirping birds, perched on all the branches.

Impressive was the fact that she could talk to me, the complainer, and actually answer my questions, while moving across the room, with handfuls of medications for the others.

But again I ask, how can you run a hospital short staffed and still maintain safety, service, and quality? I guess I can answer that: you can't.

It's noticeably the individuals who pull through, like the multi purpose RN. These are some amazing people who do the job of several people, while still, personally trying to make it right even though they don't have the help they need.

Thank you to all those who have dedicated themselves to caring for patients even without the back up you need.

I apologize to those who work so hard at the hospital to maintain personal standards of care, while fighting the inability of the system to maintain itself, and having to watch while big dollars fly out the door, misspent, misdirected, and unmonitored.

But we will get a handle on this soon. I don't want to see anymore quality nurses and staff walking away because of stress and because they don't want to work for a hospital which they clearly see "short changing" the community.

And it still remains to be seen

What will investigators from the state be doing as myself and others still have much evidence to share? I'll let you know.

Preview KVHD special meeting: what are they hiding?

There is so much material I want to show you from the meeting it will take a few days to get the videos, and pictures and pull the quotes, but it will be worth it.

Now I'm going to be open with you, because that is what someone or some institution would do if it were not sitting behind closed doors (only after the meeting) hatching out their plan to get property tax money from the community to pay off old debts.

Are they doing this because they believe that is the best way to proceed in "fairness" to the community which is why the hospital exists in the first place and why they are here? We are going to find out.

They don't exactly want you to know "specifically" where that money will be going. I'm just guessing here, but they may not want you to know that you will be paying to clean up after mismanagement and waste with your money. They are practicing a way to word this, plus, as they said, you won't know what it means anyway...so sad they know this community so well.

That's a little extreme, but what a meeting and I can't wait to tell you all that happened. We had a few visitors who happened to make it to this most important meeting which contained on the agenda such things as a contract with HFS, a finance consultant firm, coming aboard the Titanic to see what they can do about that iceberg, Cal Mtg. which is waiting with it's palms out.

No newspaper coverage. Not important to the local media to get the truth out there to the people who need to hear it.

So, tomorrow, I'll begin my work, but it will most certainly be worth the wait...

Oh, and this email shown below is a correspodence between Cal Mtg. AKA OSHPD, and KVHD finance manager, Chet Beedle.

Apparently, they didn't want the truth that the hospital was in default to get out to soon to the public who is likely to be paying off that debt (which is ridiculous) when and if they vote for a General Obligation Bond.



I have never met Mabel Chan, but Chet is in constant contact with her as this stack of public records indicates.

Why Mabel would it be an issue that the public would know about the default? I assume it was the timing? It was eventually going to have to come out and even if you changed your mind and contract, what difference would it have made? None probably.

Or it might influence those voters who will cast their votes to pay you and your organization off with their property taxes for the next thirty years.
I'm simply suggesting that might be the motive.

This is a public hospital with certain responsibilities to the public. You have to understand this hospital could have been in great shape and you may have even been paid off had good decisions been made.

You insured them, supposedly based on data like business plans, and feasibility studies: but the public doesn't have that knowledge when they cast their vote to choose to "insure" that the hospital remains in the community possibly this November.

And it seems we are trying hard to keep the community and the board of directors blind.

If I'm wrong, you're certainly welcome to tell me...If I'm right, say nothing at all..
More to follow...

How to save journalism article timely and snippet from KVHD board meeting....

I happen to see a small paper, the Community Alliance, out of Fresno, and there isn't anything provocative or even high tech about the little black and white "free" paper, but the article on the front page caught my attention.

The article which actually was taken from the nation http://www.thenation.com/. The title is what caught my eye: "How to save Journalism."

If you get a chance this morning with your cup of coffee, take a read about what you read, and think about it more.

Nobody is going to convince me that there was a golden age of journalism where it wasn't "used" by one person or another for campaigns or money making ventures, but it can certainly be criticized for taking itself seriously these days.

Just becuase you can put up two hundred televisions on a wall, and look emotionally at each and every one of them, doesn't mean you are diseminating the news in a manner which helps anyone.

Plane goes down, thirty people are hurt, hundreds dead, and we have broadcasters crying it out on television. Help me out here, but did you know any of these people?

The job would be to get pertinent information to families of the victims, not start the wake before anyone has died.

Open up the community alliance, http://www.fresnoalliance.com/ and take a read just to provoke thought on these matters.

If you were completely interested in the topic, there is a professor, Michael Parenti, I believe he's still at Berkely, not sure, but he wrote some wonderful, scathing, but informative books on the relationship between politics and the mass media.

And here's another article with the ABC in it; I've been really reading about the sinking ship called the evening news, and have actually turned on the television which I don't like, and watched some old time news.

http://www.indystar.com/article/20100305/OPINION12/3050321/1002/OPINION/As-networks-chased-profits-news-product-suffered

And now a hospital board snippet

Yes, I missed the board meeting as I struggled with a dead battery in my camera at 5:30, I knew it was not going to happen.

The news that has come to me so far has been that CCO, Cynthia Burciaga, attended the meeting and spoke during the public portion of the meeting, "the three minute warning."

Burciaga, had quite a few things to say such as that she had resigned because of personal issues, was supposedly ignored for two days before she could get an appointment with the "open door policy" the CEO, Tim McGlew.

McGlew refuted a few things that Burciaga said, but was generally quiet as she explained she had wanted to work in the ER. She said she is unable to do this because she, and we are not clear on this, may or may not have threatened a "grievance" procedure against two people, and one a board member.

We have heard the 20 plus year, board member, Brad Armstrong the trustee who voted to sink the hospital with debt in the 1980's, and was around for other ruinous mistakes such as the hiring of elder abuse charged former CEO, Pam Ott, and the prolonged problems in the nursing facility which were not policed by the hospital's own elected officials.

As board member, Bob Jamison likes to say, "stuck on stupid," these mistakes have been repeated and some still are.

There was no reporter or obvious support shown from the board for Burciaga, who wanted to work in the ER, and still wants to work at the hospital, but because of the technicalities with the grievance procedure, she will likely have to move on, unless the board works something out with her.

Armstrong at several meetings last year, and at one famous meeting in 2007, has talked about this "grievance procedure" and said it works, but the employees somehow don't' know how to use it, even though it it laid out in the manuals at the hospital.

Without going into detail, I have video of Armstrong's explanation of this employee policy and it does not match what is in the employee handbook.

It seems at this time, it is the community who is wondering what happened to Burciaga, and only time will tell if there is more to this story than is apparent at the moment.

Just finishing up her role as fundraiser for Whiskey Flats, Burciaga played the role of "Cimaron Cynthia" raising money for charity, and she said in her speech she would be forever, "Cimaron Cynthia."

We will dig a little deeper and see what we find, as people are inquiring as to what happened. I'm getting the impression people are thinking "cover up" ... Again.

Kern Valley Healthcare District Board of Directors meeting tonight...Wed. May 5, 2010

Extra, your extra money, read all about it; KVHD board meeting

KVHD board of directors, your elected officials, will be convening their monthly board meeting tonight which will likely skirt all around the subject of finances and bonds. (come and watch the spin)

Since there has never been a straightforward relationship with the community and the hospital, I don't see much in the way of explanation regarding recent events which have lead to the district's main debtor, Cal Mtg., wanting to bring on a management company to help squeeze out all the money so it can to pay said Cal Mtg. their money. (14 million)

Cal Mtg. would then pay that money to the fools who invested in a backward, rural hospital, and bought our revenue bonds 20 years ago.

It's interesting that the same company who had to take over the sinking ship in Reedley, Sierra Kings District hospital, HFS, is likely the company who will climb aboard and pirate our sinking ship.

HFS has a good reputation, and they are expensive no doubt. It will cost us a pretty penny to save a pretty penny. This makes sense right? The more you spend the more likely you are to succeed?

Why that's the motto of the government: throw more money at it and hope for the best.

Although HFS is running a bankruptcy at Sierra Kings, that is not an option for this valley I'm afraid. I've been asked repeatedly why we don't just do what every rich person in this country has done, and that is, to bankrupt our debt.

Sorry, unlike a former President of the United States, George W. Bush, who was allowed to make mistakes and then have others foot the bill, Cal Mtg. doesn't let that happen. (No, the hospital evidently didn't read the fine print.)

I'm afraid Abraham Lincoln, a beloved figure, a President, bankrupted twice so he could start his life over. Cal Mtg. would hate him.

But no we are not allowed to do it. It would be a chapter 9, a municipal bankruptcy, and Cal Mtg. could possibly if we had a good attorney and sharp financial advisor, lose.

That is likely why they have made their presence known, even though we have paid them up to date, we still don't have the money for our "summer Lovin'" payment in August.

I have never used bankruptcy, but have been bankrupted on for a lot of money. However, if the time comes, I will use it as it is there for a reason and has been used since the 1800's. Bankruptcy is older than Cal Mtg.

Here's a few people who have bankrupted that you may not have known about: Walt Disney. Yes, we may not have Mickey Mouse and the Matterhorn ride, if it weren't for bankruptcy.

How about this one: Charles Keating. Yes, you can cheat and steal and bankrupt too. That is tough to take that someone like Keating bankrupts himself and everyone else for that matter, but the Kern Valley Healthcare District would rather make it's residents pay for a mediocre service, than challenge the big guys in Sacramento.

After more than a year of hearing how the hospital finances are dandy, seeing headlines in the Kern Valley Son of Sam newspaper about tiny glitches, yet nothing serious, and now we get the anvil dropped on us.

They flip and then little politicians like the board of directors of this hospital, they "flop."

But what they want, without directly telling you, is your "extra" money. Does everyone have extra money to give to the hospital to pay off the California government for taking a bad risk?

It doesn't matter, they are coming for your money, so just sit down and start counting.

Just write your checks

When did KVHD decide the community has to pay for their mistakes? I guess recently, and I'm just going to write this check, I trust these people with my health, why not my money too?

Wait, my health declined when I got to KVHD, so I'm not sure I could say I trust them with my healthcare.

Maybe I should get more information before I just start paying these people for botching up a project and overspending more than twenty years ago which lead us to the present situation: No toilet seat covers in the hospital bathrooms and a good candidate for bankruptcy.

But first as an educated voter and taxpayer I need to do some research. Like, who is in charge of hospital finances? Oh, Mr. Cheet Bedle. Well that sounds good. I know he's really smart because I can't understand a word the man says and he never tries to clarify.

So, I'm writing my check to the hospital, and thinking maybe more information is due me before I just hand over my money. Are the board members knowledgeable about hospital and accounting issues, and are they generally practical, trustworthy people?

Well, one is on the radio going nuts about politicians, yet he is one. When I remind him, he snorts and walks away. Maybe he's the exception to the bell curve.

Then there's Brad Armstrong, he's had a lot of experience, and he's got a lot of money too, so he must know the in's and out's of caring for your nest egg and the future.

Well, it seems Mr. Armstrong was on the board for all the major and egregious errors which have occurred.

Okay, but then there's three more board members, what are they doing? They are so quiet, which means they are either humble in the presence of greater intelligence, like the CEO and CFO, or they are afraid to step up and dig for good solid answers themselves?

I think they want to be "liked" and are afraid of being criticized. Poor things.

This community can understand that right? We are so non-judgmental and understanding here.

I should find out where the problems are that they need help with so our tax money isn't misspent.

How many operations does the hospital perform each year?
Less than ten? That doesn't seem like a lot. Is it brain surgery? Or lobotomies of some sort?

Now do we have a surgeon? How much do we pay him?

Oh, he's retired and spends a lot of time funning around the lake. He probably just takes a stipend knowing this is a senior community.

WHAT? A million dollars for ten surgeries and we are not making money? Oh, yes, now I see the problem.

Okay, all I have to do is mention this at one of their meetings and they will see what I mean and take my recommendations into consideration.

WHAT? My three minutes are up, I haven't even...

(That was the KVHD melodrama brought to you by the Office of Statewide healthcare Planning and Development)

So, come on down to the hospital for Cinco de Mayo, May 5 at 5:30 pm. in the hospital cafeteria.

In conclusion, the taxpayer will pay, because any bankruptcy judge is going to see what the finance manager has allowed to happen, the waste, the salaries of the administrators, the nepotism and inbred employment practices, the nightmare criminal elder abuse case and the civil suits it spawned; and that judge is going to say clearly it was not all Cal Mtg.

Then you write your check...

Maybe now this picture will mean somethingn to you...

Nobody bankrupts on Cal Mtg., really...

Early word is Cal Mtg. the insurer of the Kern Valley Healthcare District bond debt is recommending we get some help in the way of financial management. (which is a nice way of them saying you owe us and we are going to be making the calls now)

Now, there are many posts on the blog regarding Cal Mtg. which I will list for you as we have only just begun...there is no happy ending in sight.

I've talked about this for a few years now and I've explained it many ways, adding all sorts of examples. I even wrote a proposal last year and garnered support for dealing with the problem then and not letting the limb rot to the gangrenous point.

Funny that we have the same financial person who has repeatedly told some really interesting, though hardly coherent, stories about how we are the only pharmacy in town who can't make money. How we needed to cut staff which lead to us going the complete opposite way and try to buy ourselves out of trouble with the likes of Don Ermel Doyle and his gang from the nursing center.

That was a great three million dollar investment.

Just like the 22 million we anchored the district with 20 plus years ago. Theres so much this hospital could have done.

And again, that's not "history" I'm talking about, I'm talking this year. Why didn't the board or administration ask to have another look by another finance consultant as they could see they were on the "killer Luge?"

I don't know, just wondering, they wouldn't have something to hide and that's why they didn't get help earlier before the storm hit. It's kind of like Katrina behavior: we saw the storm coming, were warned, but decided to do nothing.

And now Cal Mtg. who thought we were quite the country rubes back in the late 80's, (and I guess we were by the looks of it) took our bet that we could build all these great things onto the hospital and do it for 13 million which was way out of our means.

But Cal Mtg. was there with her alluring credit line, her feasibility studies, and we like money, so we took it. And when trouble started our "friends" found a likely criminal way to get us 9 million more so we could try, but not succeed in finishing our building plans.

We built an Operating room that used to actually be used, now there are a lot of colonoscopies going on up there, and a regular losing proposition, it is costing the hospital big bucks.

But the nursing center was not short staffed in 2005 because it didn't make money: it was short staffed so that money could be jockeyed over to another department which was losing money.

Like when I heard the physical therapy department was making money, and they couldn't get their supplies. The money that department makes was being moved into another department to make up their deficiency.

There is no organization anymore or if there ever was. I just know that at this point this hospital and it's satellite clinic, "the jewel of the district" are not safe places to get your healthcare.

Hey cal Mtg. if you want it, take it. Oh, yeah, you already know that.

But the bottom line is they own us.

What? I told you we own them? We do own them.

Whose on first? Right.

We pay property taxes and vote

I'm afraid to tell you reader but you might be to blame for part of this situation at the KVHD hospital.

If you live in this valley and voted in sorts such as Brad Armstrong, and Bob Jamison, then you know nothing about their contributions to the financial collapse.

Armstrong who has spent his life trying to control everything, and I say this humbly as he has a license to carry a gun and I'd rather not get any more on his bad side (yeah right), voted more than 20 years ago to screw up the future of the this hospital.

We are looking at the ghost of decisions past. Armstrong should have watched the construction more carefully and not taken the seemingly "free rural" monies backed by Cal Mtg. He has at least admitted this was a "bad decision" but doesn't he get it? He's sitting there on the board looking at the consequences of a bad decision.

But then there's Cal Mtg. themselves, a qausi government agency, in theory who was to "help" rural hospitals.

We can see from records that they not only helped, but mostly landed on their heads as many of those loans seem awful iffy. Even on the outside, I think a good analyst could detect a pattern of allowing the agency to insure the very unsure. That got this country hospital in trouble. Now we need to be saved.

Maybe a pawn shop we have a lot of unused equipment such as PhACO machines and Mammography, and there's plenty of other odds and ends.

Or how about another feasibility study by the experts at OSHPD?

I'm sure are overactive board of directors will come up with something to pull us through. Right? They have been so helpful so far.

Maybe Cal Mtg. should just dump them all and start over. I would if I had that power and you all know it. I've not been impressed by anything...well maybe because nothing has been done.

But how could they be wrong they make money

Cal Mtg. doesn't want to hear that people in this valley think we should bankrupt on them.

Because Cal Mtg. has something we are all trying to get: clout. They make money and that is a good thing these days.

But it's also odd.

Someone said to me the other day when I asked about the person's leaning toward paying for a bond or a parcel tax, aren't public hospital's non profit.

Well, you have to have some profit to keep going into the future, but non profits have a different structure. We will discuss this soon.

I'll get as much information as I can regarding this new development, and we will find out soon if HFS, who happens to be in Reedley cleaning up with a bankruptcy, will be our new neighbors.

My blog is so bloated with information, I'll try to get a list of the Cal mtg. posts so that anyone interested, can find out more.

Don't strain yourselves, this information is tedious and quite boring unless you're an obsessed writer/researcher. If you begin to understand what I'm talking about, I warn you it could be bad for your health. You will be quite irritated to see the mediocrity and arrongance which are in charge of your healthcare.

Much more to come, like a board meeting, this week, Cinco de Mayo, 5:30 pm in the cafeteria. If Cal mtg. brings the guacamole, we might bring some chips...