Commentary

August 28th, 2008

More Problems at PPH

There’s still some grumbling and unhappiness at Palomar Medical Center and Pomerado Hospital, both of which are part of the Palomar Pomerado Health District.

Why?

Layoffs.

Out of the 86 employees recently laid off, some were long time employees . . . some with 20 to 30 years in experience. Several were in key positions. Positions that you don’t just hire someone new and plug them in and say, “there, now do well.”

They were in important positions that took years of work and experience to learn . . to know who to contact to get things done, how to report and to whom to report about what.

A lot of the layoffs were apparently based on long time employees because they had the larger salaries, which we might observe, they had earned by virtute of long, faithful and more than competent service to the hospital district.

We have heard from sources inside the hospital that some executives are scrambling about, running around in circles, wondering who they’re going to get to fill this slot, who to train for that slot, and did they make a mistake laying off this person or this group of people?

At no time did PPH give out a list to those laid off, or to the public, as to which employees were laid off, which positions were left vacant.

We’ve talked with a number of laid off former Palomar Pomerado staff members, some of whom have found new positions, others who have not. All of whom feel abandoned. Almost all feel they were laid off because they were too old, too highly paid. They had developed a comfort level of almost having tenure.

Surprise! PPH claims to be one of the best places in California to work. But tenure is not one of the perks.

A number of the former employees wondered why PPH could affort to pay King Michael Covert $676,000 a year, yet lay off long time employees who were, collectively, still only making a fraction of that salary.

Several former PPH employees told us the layoffs came down with a heavy boom. Totally unexpected. None of them had any reason to suspect they would be laid off. At least that’s what they thought.

In addition to Covert’s high salary and perks, they also complained about the many high priced consultants PPH had hired at “excessive, vulgar prices in consulting fees.”

Consultants come and go. As do high priced administrators.

Staff . . . the people who truly make a hospital run smoothly should not. They should stay within the system and help it to function properly.

They were willing. The administration was not willing to let them.

•••••

We’ve made the offer before. We make it again.

The physicians and staff of PPH need to have a voice in their careers; in their future. Most are afraid to speak publicly for fear of retribution.

The Paper will be your voice.

Feel free to contact us, privately, at:
thepaper@cox.net.

We will be happy to give you an opportunity to air your grievances, to tell your story, and we will protect your identity.

We are your community newspaper. We are here to help you and we are here to point out when things have gone terribly, terribly wrong.

We think PPH is a trainwreck, ready to happen. We’d like to help prevent that.

If you have ideas that you think would help downtown Escondido, let’s hear ‘em! We’ll be happy to forward them to Debra Rosen and the DBA. Just send them to: thepaper@cox.net.