Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Embarrassed? I am...8/12

I think the sentiments of this email are echoed by many.

As a former employee, that left because of illness, not E$$ent, I have one question: When is the community going to get involved?

Even with the high price of fuel, Pts. are going in droves to Dallas, Tyler, and elsewhere for care. Why? Because they have lost faith in the system in Paris. That is a very sad situation for our people.

At one time PRMC was a place to be proud of. I truly loved my job and the atmosphere there. I have become ashamed to tell anyone that I worked there. The comments that are heard in the area are awful.

The employees can not do this by themselves; they need support from all of the surrounding counties.

Are the community leaders also on E$$ent's payroll? If not, PLEASE HELP to get this hospital back in shape for pt. care, not just dollar signs. If the quality of care had improved there would be no problem, but it has steadily gone down since E$$ent entered the picture.

This is affecting more than the hospital, people who used to come from different counties, far and wide, are now choosing to risk their life to get out of Paris, to a facility where they don't know anyone, and are far from home, just to avoid the chance that the rumors are true about the poor care given in Paris.

When these same people came here before, I'm sure they shopped with the local merchants. That just adds to the losses that most merchants cannot afford at this time.

Who do we have to approach to get the hospital back to taking care of our people????????
I wonder when a sense of embarrassment will overtake this community as a whole.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Having been through a similar situation, it has become abundantly clear that community leaders are of the same ilk as those running E$$ent. There is a plan in place. And when there is a plan in place, NOTHING will derail that plan. Health care, etc., doesn't necessarily fit into that plan. As such, the lack of adequate health care is not a problem. How ironic. A hospital not concerned about health care.

There is a group that is seeking to bring outside business, industry, people to Paris (see the aforementioned plan). What they don't understand is people won't want to come to a community with inferior health care.

If you want to point fingers at those who are not helping, you have to start with the Paris Snooze. If I was a newspaper publisher, I would at least have to look into the claims made in this blog. But not so much as a whisper from Graxiola and the boys down at the Snooze. In fact, the only press from them has been pats on the backs for Andy, et al.

Changes will eventually have to be made. By that time though, PRMC will be a mere shadow of its former self.

Anonymous said...

The three big considerations for companies to relocate:
Location (transportation),
Education (workforce & quality of the system),
Healthcare (availability & quality.)

Your inset picture does it justice.

Anonymous said...

want a change??? unionize

Anonymous said...

To "Three big considerations...":

Location: A hundred miles from everywhere.

Education: Shouldn't be a problem with five districts in the county.

Healthcare: More like health "don't" care.

One outta three ain't good.

Anonymous said...

The same minds, Fendley, Wilson, Bray, Guest, Graxiola, Bell, Cecil and the Harpers run this county and government they also serve in various positions at the hospital, until the citizens of Paris, Texas get tired of they way things are going the hospital will continue in a downward spiral as will the city of Paris. Until you the employees buy a page in the paper and tell more people what is happening, this blogspot is not going to be viewed by very many citizens, get the word out print flyers and put them in businesses all around town,go on the radio. It is time for PRMC employees and the employees of the city of Paris to come together and let the people in on what we know. Who is going to step foward?

Anonymous said...

Therein lies the problem. If a full page, Sunday ad showed up in the snooze, there would be token firings in the city and the hospital to make sure that doesn't happen again.

In order to affect the snooze, you have to affect their life source; money. Advertisers. If business falls off for those who advertise in the paper, they would be likely to stop advertising. When the advertising dollars stop coming in to the snooze, they will then be more willing to print the news and not some whitewashed version of it.

If the employees of both of these entities decide to join forces and run that ad, I would recommend you retain an attorney to look over the ad and make sure it is not libelous.

Anonymous said...

Most of these posts are misguided in that they don’t understand the realities of hospital finances in the current economic environment. I know most of the men mentioned in one of these tirades, and they want a vibrant hospital more than you may realize. Even if you accept the paranoid notion that there is some grand "PLAN", it doesn’t make sense to think it would include having a crippled medical delivery system.

The civic leaders are as concerned as you are about the outmigration of patients etc., but think about it for a minute; what exactly are the options?
1 A county taxed based hospital?
2 Trying to force a private company who has put their money up to provide medical care to the citizens?
3 Try to attract another hospital corp. to build a new hospital in a market that is 65% Medicare / Medicaid and no-pay.

The simple answer is that the community leaders don’t have a lot they can do in the present situation. To blame them for the policies of Essent is misguided and unfair.

The truth is that as long as Paris had local control over its hospitals the public enjoyed a superior medical environment. If you want to blame anyone blame the Congress of the US who passed the BALLENCED BUDGET AMENDMENT of 1998, that act alone took over 5 million dollars out of the two hospitals annual budgets. You can mark from that date the deterioration of our hospitals: the sale of Mc Cuistion The merger of St Jo with Christus. The collapse of the hospital owned primary care group and the subsequent merger of ST Jo and MRMC and the million-a-month losses that that entity endured.

The facts are that Essent was the wrong company and the wrong place.
It will take an entity with deep pockets to save the situation. It will take building a new hospital and attracting back all the experienced nurses that we have lost (spell that higher pay) to turn the situation around.

Attacking civic leaders bespeaks a notion that they can do something about it. To imply that they have a plan to sabotage the hospital or in any way negatively influence it is reckless and counter productive.

I cleaned up the typos, so they didn't stand in the way of the message. I don't think my posts have been unfair to the local 'leaders'. This is one situation that doesn't get changed from within, at least not at their level.

I point out that the board condones the actions of Essent, merely by their participation in the process. Acceptance of the public position means garnering the blame, as well.--Frank

Anonymous said...

Hey Frank,

I think he means the comments, not the posts....

Anonymous said...

I don't believe anyone has suggested that civic leaders have a plan to sabotage the hospital or diminish care provided therein. However, there is a movement afloat, both at the hospital and within the city to cut costs, to become more "efficient". Lowered costs and efficiency are great if service doesn't suffer. Remember, efficiency means doing the job with less cost (personnel, etc). But you reach a point where this plan becomes inefficient. Diminished service is injurious to those to whom that service is provided. In simple terms, if it takes x number of people to do a job, you can't do that job efficiently or effectively with x minus 5. Remaining workers are left to do more resulting in shoddy work or even injury.

Replacing experienced workers with inexperienced results in a similar outcome. The learning curve is greater, and at least in the medical field, learning to do your job over a patient may not be the best time or place, at least for the patient, otherwise known as the customer.

Cutting fat is good. But going past the break-even point can result in a poorer quality product, whether it be health care or street repairs, and thus increase liability.

fac_p said...

True, rebuilding a water meter isn't the same as rebuilding a Ivac, nor is a sterile dressing like distributing hot patch for a street. And very few potholes or water leaks will kill you.

The mind set in both instances and both sides is similar. Management works on the personnel costs, because they are the easiest target and largest slice of the pie. However, if mid-level management did their job of communicating solve-at-the-lowest-level and you-own-the-problem, significant cost savings in both worlds could be felt.

Anonymous said...

fac_p:

If you think potholes won't kill you, you need to drive down my street.

I did say, "very few"....Frank

Anonymous said...

Re; anonymous 6:47:

Wanna see a plan that's going full steam ahead? Go to
parisneedsasuperhero.blogspot.com , and read "Looking forward, to the past".

5:11 PM

Okay, but when I need a plug....
And, actually, I did read the comments, and took two to heart. The Paris News(Snooze) has over the years been willing to turn a blind eye to several issues: healthcare, the closure of the fire stations, and the transmission line issue.

Graxiola seems to have his own agenda, and seems to be willing to give a hand up...to all but the people at the wrong end of the stick. I was thinking that 5:52 was pushing the boundaries, but with what I've seen and the two comments that struck nerves on "Super Hero", maybe it hasn't been pushed enough....Frank

I'm_Batman said...

Was kind of shameless, wasn't it? And to do it anonymously...

Plug away.