Seniors no cost of living increase: possible increase in property taxes, don't get old

Do we continue to treat seniors, elderly and disabled as second class citizens?

When I saw that the COLA, or Cost of living adjustment, will not be accorded retired seniors for the second year in a row. Two years behind heavy increases in all aspects of living, gas, food, heat and cooling: well everything has gone up everywhere we go.

With the difficulties financially, as seniors often can no longer work, and are not being invited into many job situations, and many are being thrown out of companies they spent their whole lives working for a secure retirement.

These are a few of the reasons that I cannot agree to "measure G" the property tax measure which will add another burden to the overburdened. The KVHD adminstration seems to be selling this bond increase without any consideration the seniors and disabled.

Growing old is not for sissies

Most of us work all our lives trying to put children through college, raising grandchildren, holding together relationships, and in the end we find that there are few who even have considered, it will be you someday making these decisions, finding yourself in a financial struggle, or having to spend time in a nursing home.

Pat McGinnis of CANHR, California advocates for nursing home reform, told me that there is much resistance in government to help find answers to clear out the problems in nursing homes and treat them with dignity.

"There are more than 25 thousand people right now who are being abused in nursing home throughout the state."

The Kern Valley Healthcare District faced the very things that continue to keep the eldery and long term care patients on the bottom list for care. Short staffing, keeping the money at the top, rather than with the caregivers who tend to the patients.

What an honorable job to help those who have lived many kinds of lives, have contributed to the well being of others, and now need help.

In an article below, it spells out the cruel nature of our elder care system. It's called, "Elder Abuse: America's dirty little secret." The title of the site is intriguing, "renew America." It's a good article for anyone young, old or compassionate.
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/connor/101016

When the KVHD board gave the CEO a raise on the night the GOB went on the ballot


KVHD board chairwoman, Victoria Alwin,
addresses the raise for new CEO, Tim
McGlew.

One odd thing was she and the board didn't do their homework and had not known what the normal
salary for a rural hospital CEO would be.


Not only that, but they had to ask CFO, Chet Beedle, what the CEO's were paid in the past.
McGlew came into the postion of CEO/nursing home administrator, with a salary 60 to 80 thousand more than the average salaries a normal hospital would pay.

"I don't know what we paid the other CEO's, but there's an old saying...pardon? What did we pay the other CEO's on an average chet?" Alwin asked.

So, without any information, salary averages, knowledge, Alwin asked chet what did we pay in the past. He mumbled 150, meaning $150,000. Without blinking an eye the chairwoman suggested a few things.


Dr. Robert Gross and Victoria Alwin
look to Chet Beedle for a figure on
how much the previous CEO's were
paid. They obviously rely soley on
the CFO and CEO, information, as obvisouly
they didn't do their homework. Not prudent.



Alwin suggested a flat $30,000 dollars raise for the CEO, without any research of her own on the average salaries, nor, any understanding that asking the community pay a partial on an old debt, bury the valley under two bond, and then said something that has not left my mind since that night.

She explained that a 3% raise for the CEO, would be after taxes, roughly four hundred dollars.

"So what I suggest is giving a good size raise, like I said, $400 dollars is cute..."

I bet the seniors and disabled don't think $400 is cute, in fact, it could pay for propane, food, help pay for home care, any number of things.

It could also help pay the property taxes on measure g.

I found that whole line of thinking offensive, and as I've reiterated to take a "higher than normal salary" and add to it, not know the history or averages of these salaries, but yet make a vote to put it into effect, is nothing to be proud of.

I'm backing the seniors in this race as we don't have to do this there is another option or three.


Chet Beedle looking uncomfortable
as Alwin adds up the millions of dollars
in losses incurred by the hospital due
to mismangement. Though Chet seemed
embarrassed, Alwin then blamed former
CEO, Rick Carter for the problems.



I hope this community helps itself by realizing you can ask all the questions you want of the administrators, but that doesn't mean you understand what is really being said.

So, Alwin, thinks $400 is cute. It may be the difference between heat and cold for some seniors. and now, even meals on wheels has cut their service to one meal a day.

We need to think about the seniors both in the sense of quality care and staffing in the nursing center here in the valley, but we all need to consider that it was elder abuse, death, that occurred right under our noses in this small town.

Good article from Renew America, please read. We have to think about this issue as this is a senior community with a growing senior population.

KVHD update: flashback to mammography, ECHO, time frame, ACHD who would lobby?

Kern Valley Healthcare District Controller, Barbara Figueroa, shown here, at the February board of directors meeting. Figueroa shows a lot of control during meetings, rarely saying more than is necessary, such as during the finance committee meetings, where she reports on the contracts and contractors who move through and sometimes over the hospital.
Victoria Alwin, the newly elected Chairwoman of the board, now leading board, sits next to Dr. Robert Gross, DO, who is now the treasurer, ask questions of financial manager, Chet Beedle, who has repeatedly changed the story on the financial position of the district in the last year.

Beedle has gone from projecting moderate losses last year, to vilifying the community for going to the Emergency room for things that are less than emergent, like colds and coughs.

I asked Beedle why collections on a three year old bill for $8.10 went out to the community recently. He argued that we have to collect all the money we can.

But we all know that should have been done three years ago.

Tim McGlew, our new CEO, can say he was not here during the strenuous and crime filled times, but Beedle cannot.

He has been here for a long time. Now I would like to know what sort of report of his performance is being done?

Or did we do that three years ago, and don't want to spend the money to quantify the value of our financial program?

As I pointed out in the article regarding the Sierra Kings District launching it's attempt to get money out of a failed collections department, created a 40% and you're off the hook plan just to try and get as much money as possible.

Sandy Haskins, interim CEO for Sierra Kings, a much beleaguered rural healthcare district like our own (even had former CEO Pam Ott) came from a consultant firm called HFS and they have been working to bring in all the past collections.

We have yet to see or hear of anything like that going on at KVHD. We have yet to hear these kinds of things, called public information.

I'm asking for a complete screening of our financial department, which may cost money, but then could save money too if it began to run efficiently.

Kay Knight listens intently as questions regarding the costs of the hospital's annual trips to ACHD, Association of California healthcare Districts, which lobbies on behalf of rural and small hospitals.
There was a quote by a reporter that the costs for the ACHD meetings are over priced in this bleak economy. The quote was attributed to Marge Swendleson in the Kern Valley Sun Newspaper yesterday.

Now, let me ask, who is lobbying for this hospital? Bob Jamison? Brad Armstrong? Are they making trips to Sacramento with new ideas for the legislature? Are they writing letters to their representatives asking for grants to upgrade our equipment?

I'd say no is your answer there folks.

Check out ACHD website if you read the quotation out of the newspaper which is not actually a "local" paper. In fact, they are a corporation out of Arizona.

So, shop local. (as they like to say around here, not me, I don't say that. Others do though.)

Well, it was a real deal for Cimarron Cynthia as she came on board for the charity run helping the ECHO (Exploring Careers in Healthcare Occupations) program which is being hit by budget cuts and maybe even a misunderstanding of what this program is about, and other programs like it.

I'll begin by saying this program begins at the High School level and many of the students graduate having a job already at the hospital. They have reached a level of education that qualifies them as a nurse's aide once they transfer to Cerro Coso, where they can qualify as a nurse's aide or EMT.

For many students it's the beginning of a career in healthcare and for some that is as far as they go, using the experience to work while they pursue another career.

But many students get motivated and after working a few years as an aide or EMT, they move on to other specialized courses, possibly a higher level of nursing such as LVN or even an RN. Others go into management. (Uhum, yes they do)

It's an opportunity for younger students to get a head start on a career or even just higher level employment, but it could be lost in the strangulation that's taking place in education.

Cynthia Burciaga, a Texan I hear, had a group throwing pies for cash, and raised a bucketful of dough, where some will land right in the ECHO, echo, echo, program and the rotary club.

Burciaga, who has been working long hours as Chief Clinical Officer and Director of Nursing in the skilled nursing facility, added charity to her list of many things to do. She was talked into it by one of the mangiest, volunteer wranglers in the valley, Miss Jeanette Rogers.

Rogers will be wrangling us all up for the Heart walk coming up next week, where we will be required to exercise until it hurts our pocketbooks. And the money will go to the hospital where it will be used for...(still waiting on that answer)

During her time as regular Cynthia "the overworked" she has been plagued by worries from a community which never heard the truth nor an apology for what has happened in the nursing center, with the employees, the pharmacy and financially.

But we have a different situation there now, and it would nice if the media looked at the hospital in a fair way which would allow us to understand these mistakes happened in the past and a few new administrators and staff are working on trying to get things in order.

The quote of the night by Burciaga regarding bringing in new services: "We have to work on getting one thing right before we move on to other services."

Bravo, the reality check. Good to hear it.

Finally, kudos go out to the winners of employees of the year. They won a Canadian health insurance plan and a pie in the face.

Not really....

The 2009 Employees of the Year are:
Clinical Services – Colleen Brun, RN, Emergency Department
Support Services – Monica Spradling, Housekeeping
Manager of the Year – Mike Miller, Plant Operations Manager
Each of the individuals above received a check for $100.00 and a 4-day cruise to Baja Mexico. (And none have returned. Hmm?)

And finally, yes, here's an answer to the mammography question and my response: When the mammography unit was purchased, the Foundation purchased a used motorhome to house the mammo unit in an effort to make it a ‘mobile’ unit. That never really worked. The story that I got was that there were problems with the unit being mobile and the need to re-calibrate each time the unit was moved. Anyway, the motorhome was recently donated back to the Foundation who did indeed sell it. The mammography unit was not sold.
My response: I have heard about the mammography situation, but was told so many different stories I never understood. Now, I had heard about the unit being mobile, therefore requiring calibration, but really, did they have to move it once it was understood this would happen each time?
And the second story, more feasible, was that there was not enough patients to warrant keeping a tech full time. Again, that doesn't necessarily hold water or saline, as there could have simply been times where a tech was available, like anything else.
Then there was a shortage of techs, and on and on.

Now, I have to ask a few obvious questions regarding the situation. Okay, we let this sit idle for whatever number of years, and I'm assuming that there would be some missed out upgrades, so is the unit ready to be housed in a unit, room, where it can be used? We don't have dialysis, but we could have mammography in a jiffy.

See if the hospital suddenly starts using the equipment, drops a grand or two to make it go rrrrrr again, and has a tech in there part time running the thing, it's going to look bad, but at least something will occur which could make quite a bit of money. Equipment sitting around not making money. Much like the lull with the heart equipment. The foundation had that purchased and gathering dust pretty fast.

Question, is there anyway for me to just look at the paperwork surrounding the purchase of the unit and the type of unit it is? And who serviced the unit? And how did the mammography department do in the numbers? Did we write off, depreciate, or recalibrate the numbers?

Surprising there has been a lot of women pushing me to get this answer. None of the answers made sense to them and I have to agree.

I'll let you all know what I find out, finally...