After board member, Bob Jamison, made a motion last month to close it down, as it was "inevitable", the board will again have the opportunity to view the new information, and possibly begin a new run at developing the customer base all over again.
But during the last Oct. KVHD meeting, the board members asked questions but didn't get the real deal regarding the information needed to make such a major decision...
Though, Brad Armstrong, voted in favor of looking at the pharmacy situation in detail, and even questioned if Chief Financial Officer, Chet Beedle had tried to market the slumping pharmacy, others at the KVHD board meeting next week may not look so good.
Chet Beedle gave us a detailed analysis which included a quirky twist, utilizing a ten year old report from a consultant firm which analyzed the hospital's problems back in 2000, which I imagine would look much different than the current situation.
My question to the board is do we really need a full time, Chief Financial Officer?
And I don't mean just this one who relies on an Ouija board or at the least, obscure data to educate the board and other administrators, like, CEO, Tim McGlew.
We are a small hospital where every penny counts and the position of CFO, maybe a place where we can save some money. (Now do you think the CFO ever thought of that, and if he did, would he really make the recommendation going against his own cozy situation.)
I say consultant. I also say consultant in human resources.
The question for our hospital is always how to survive on little money. We're a small business.
When they come to us now talking about the money problems even I could predict, I wonder how did they survive paying the salary of the former CEO, Rick Carter? Not just his salary but the plane tickets, lunches, train transportation and housing, to name a few too many.
The two million dollars which went in haste and waste to Sycamore Asset Management, a company which ambulance chased the hospital nursing center, finding a closure notice in the newspaper, said the owner of Sycamore, Don Ermel Doyle.
KVHD, in submission on it's back after the disaster in the nursing center, proceeded to write them up a time and materials contract. That is like giving them your credit card in front of the mall.
How did we survive this?
How did we make the bond payment from our long term debt to Cal Mtg? I guess we didn't pay all our vendors what we owed and moved money out of places where it should not have been taken. Maybe the pharmacy felt this pinch. And the vendor of pharmaceuticals (the real drug dealers), the distributor, did not like the slow pay and no pay status, and the stress began.
But I feel so much better that our bond payment was made even though we lost our footing because of it. And I'm so glad we never tried to negotiate with Cal Mtg. for a deference on the bond payments because we don't have anyone with a financial green thumb overseeing our "growth."
So, next week, the Kern Valley Healthcare District Board of Directors meeting Wed. Nov. 4, at 5:30 pm in the cafeteria at the hospital.
The update for now is the pharmacy will remain in operation with some staff cuts likely coming, and hopefully a new plan on how to get the medicines to the customers more quickly.
Other issues still smoldering, how to keep other losses down, like in the surgery department; and the skilled nursing facility is just on going; staffing properly not using that as a money saving tool as the CFO suggested; and many things like keeping patients at the hospital and keeping physicians of merit here.
Then the expanding must occur, and maybe even having a service that is so special it can't be found in most locations, whatever we have to do to bring service, follow it up, unlike getting mammography and never using it. (selling the trailer and parting it out, that's a huge failure we don't talk about much.)
We need plans for the future which can be effectuated, really manifested, not just talked about. I am so tired of hearing it and never seeing it, not just at KVHD, but with our government in general, but KVHD is so egregiously hypocritical that we have to start with what is in front of us: a nebulous future.
No more plans to cut a limb without first doing the homework. No more copying the homework from ten years ago. This is ridiculous, inane, and somehow there is always another excuse to go with it.
When does it end? The hospital has been under the direction of the CFO, who has not always been forthcoming, now using outdated data, and made the board and CEO look ridiculous as they were counseled to make a decision to close the pharmacy based on the financial officer's data.
What are we going to do about this situation? Let it go on, and lose more money? Make poor decision making into an art? Never knowing what is real or true in the financial reports?
I don't know, I guess I'll ask the board.
the pharmacy hardly has any service now so it is losing money or people to run the place. They tell us to come back or call to check up if medicine is ready to pick up or the stock is low. The hospital runs that pharmacy the exactly same as they do the rest of the place.
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