On Monday, July 1, Shore Health of Easton and Chester River Health in Chestertown celebrated the merging of the two health systems into a unified, five-county medical care delivery network now known as Shore Regional Health. The ceremony, held at the former Chester River Hospital in Chestertown, was attended by board leaders, senior managers and medical staff of the organizations and University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS), as well as representatives of the hospital foundations and volunteer auxiliaries, local county government, and business and civic groups.
Led by Wayne L. Garner, Sr., chair of the Board of Directors of Chester River Health, the ceremony included remarks by John W. Dillon, chair of the Board of Directors of Shore Health; Robert A. Chrencik, president and chief executive officer of University of Maryland Medical System; and Ken D. Kozel, president and chief executive officer for the new entity, Shore Regional Health.
J B Aquilla says
Re: A plethora of platitudes.
Half-truths, spin and lies of omission contained in last week’s hospital press release is now UMMS’s standard method of disinformation. When Board President Wayne Gardner states the new doctors coming here “would not be coming here to make a lot of money” he implies the corollary i.e. that the previous physicians that came here were all about making “lots of money” which some of us find both ignorant, offensive and not true. This is especially rich coming from someone who has granted himself the ambulance monopoly for all of UMMS’s mid- shore operations and an institution whose previous CEO Notebaert’s base pay was $7.5M and took home $14.5M his last year. What hutzpah!
But let’s look at the facts! UMMS/CRHC 2010 IRS 990 (found on HSCRC web site) reports the following UMMS physician salaries; Glen Robbins MD $716K, John Ashworth MD $612K and our four very own emergency room doctors from $268K to $354K. The lowest income listed is far above what I make and I suspect more than my colleague community physicians could earn; and these hospital docs don’t ever have to be on call! 2010 Executive administrative salaries include CEO Robert Chrencik at 1.85M, Joe Roth (Easton) at 625K and Jim Ross (CRHC) at $390K for doing what doctors, nuns and nurses have traditionally done, i.e.running hospitals, for nothing. Remember this compensation was in 2010.
Pre-UMMS our full service primary (as opposed to secondary or tertiary) hospital was reportedly ordered by the Maryland HSCRC to add an additional thirty beds because of 110% occupancy; instead we now have no new beds, a closed third floor, closed and/ or markedly reduced six major services, and have lost 20 original staff doctors. These facts make last weeks sweet sounding Kent News/Chestertown Spy Epistle just a bit suspect to say the least. Especially galling is we are about to lose three more services; GYN, Orthopedics and possibly Cardiology because these richly paid administrators/ entrepreneurs, who want bigger bonuses have the hypocrisy to now force specialists to take hospital call for nothing, something which I predict will result in these specialists resignations.
This is exactly what UMMS wants because the HSCRC’s guaranteed flat Total Revenue Payments (TPR) will still be collected to supply these patient services at CRHC based on historical occupancy but these patients will instead be transferred (via 26K helicopter ride) to University Hospital and thus UMMS will be paid again which will make for even fatter Administrative Christmas Bonuses.
The truth is that UMMS was given (probably to avoid an audit) this admittedly mismanaged hospital (a fact well hidden by deceit and lies at the time) for absolutely nothing and UMMS is actively turning it into a referral feeder station to University Hospital (as we had seen happen earlier in Easton and Cambridge). This maximization of profit by this so called non-profit (non-tax is more accurate) is carried out regardless of the reduced services, inconvenience for the patients, delay in treatment, additional transportation costs and the concomitant increase in patient morbidity and mortality. The loss of our full service hospital has also had a negative impact on county employment, local economy as well as property values. Alarms were sounded…and ignored. Blame Bill Kirk, the Hospital Board, the HSCRC, UMMS, politicians, incompetence, greed or even theft…it now doesn’t matter for the sad outstanding fact is through dense community wide “head in the sand” complacency we have lost this valuable jewel to everyone’s detriment. Even Gardner, Chrencik and UMMS can’t spin that away.
Marge Fallaw says
https://www.hscrc.state.md.us/documents/ConsumerPublicInterest/IRS990-2010/ChesterRiver990-2010.pdf
This document is 170 pages, for fiscal year 2010, though apparently with updates as the filing date for this document was 5/14/12, though some descriptive info already seems outdated and does not seem to reflect the current situation (including loss of privileges of many/most local physicians, as well as fuller installation of the hospitalist setup, with sometimes negative consequences for patients due to lack of continuity and uneven personnel quality, as we learned from an experience with another hospital in the UMMS Eastern Shore system).
Though the salaries of some staff members seem way out of line, I don’t begrudge the local ER doctors’ their high salaries. They have challenging, demanding jobs and years of training and experience. By and large, we have had good experiences with the ER doctors we’ve dealt with in recent years (even those who seemed to be there via a rent-a-doc service). But it certainly seems that the local hospital is becoming largely a glorified emergency room, with transfer to other, distant hospitals in the system for many situations that previously could have been handled locally (transfer only by Gardner’s expensive Best Care ambulances or those expensive yellow helicopters operated under contract with UMMS). Never mind that the distance and expense can be problematic for many, including re family support and involvement, as well as follow-up care.
Mary Wood says
I have read the press release in the Kent News, just now watched the short film in the Spy and read Dr. Aquilla’s letter. I feel as many long time Kent and Queen Anne’s County residents must feel, that the hospital started and supported by civic minded citizens and led for many years by Dr. Dick and a dedicated group of physicians, is being “morphed” into something that is no longer “ours”. Apparently a young woman can no longer have her baby there, nor is there a nursery or pediatrics department. In the Spy film I watched a series of men talking about how hard they have all worked to bring something named Shore Regional Health. Where were the voices of the citizens? Will young doctors or professors or businessmen move to the area which has no obstetrical,gynocological or pediatric services?
Louis Howeth Sr, says
Who would celebrate and why? I also wonder if UMMS took the time before the vote and celebration to advise the CRHC board about the many financial concerns of Shore Health System in Easton. These concerns have been brought out in the Easton Star Democrat. They are stated as concerns over which SHS has little control. A reductioon of executive compensation might help a lot. I do not believe that I ever met a farmer
who would put a cow in poor health in the same pen with a very sick one. This appears to me as what may of happened here.
Sick sad and sorry.
Janice Dickson says
I am so glad to see responses to this article. At first I thought people just read the article and say ho-hum, more smoke and mirrors.
Dr. Aquilla has been an outspoken critic of the hospital merger from day one. He has been punished by rumors and gossip and suffered attacks on him personally because of his truth-telling. None of this has stopped him. It is most unfortunate that more people didn’t heed his warnings.
It’s truly disgusting how our former community hospital has been gutted, perpetrated by people who should have known better, or worse, profited financially from the transactions, either from the beginning or during this downward spiral.
Now there’s nothing to be done.
This town looked like an attractive town to stay in after retirement, in part, because there was a functioning, staffed hospital. No longer.
If you need to be ambulanced by Mr. Board-Chair-Garner’s ambulance service, consider being driven to Christiana Medical Center. If you need the helicopter, I understand you have the legal right to pick the medical institution you want to go to.
(Is there some ethical consideration to be given to the Board Chair owning and profiting from the only ambulance service in our area?)
(Isn’t there some ethical consideration where the Chairperson of the Board owns the only ambulance service available?)
carol cameron says
Janice, it took me awhile to even think about composing a comment here. Right on the heels of this “Celebration” announcement, comes the announcement from the Univ. of MD Medical System that construction of the new, regional “Super Hospital” north of Easton has now been put on hold indefinitely! What? They need a more “favorable financial outlook” to proceed! It looks like Talbot and Dorchester residents have been hoodwinked here every much as Kent residents. Seems only Queen Anne’s County was on to them, right from the start. They were the only ones to mount an effort in court to hold their feet to the fire and make sure there was adequate legal basis so they could not back out of their commitment to build the new hospital. Yet, they two were bamboozled, accepted smoke and mirrors to the point they dropped the suit.
As for Gardner’s Ambulance Service, all I can say is this: Three years ago BestCare took me from Chestertown to Sinai Hospital and charged $1,096. Two weeks later, when I was discharged from Sinai and being sent to rehab facility in Chestertown, the ambulance service Sinai uses transported me and charged $560. On the first trip, I was NOT medically fragile, in fact, could have been transported by private car if one was available. On the return trip, however, I WAS considered medically fragile, so it would seem that would be the trip to incur the higher charge. Not so!
Can someone please explain T-H-A-T ? I agree with you 100%, it smells to high heaven to have the owner of a monopoly ambulance service to be serving as chairman of the local board.