I also discovered that a manager for another department had failed to report infant deaths to the state, and had since 2001, allowed fetal remains to languish in the morgue. At the time of my firing, a hospital attorney was meeting with patient finance and registration directors to try to identify a funeral director who would mass bury the remains – all twelve of them – quietly – they are deathly afraid of the Boston Globe and media coverage. I don’t know why, as Liz Kowalski seems to be in their pockets. I took immediate action to investigate and to correct all of these things, as I was also trying to address the patient delays. I discovered that many of my direct report supervisors were deliberately undermining my work and were doing whatever my boss – their former boss – what telling them to, countervailing my directives. I was threatened, blacklisted and have been unemployed since. I appealed to the hospital’s office of business compliance who never gave me any “finding” in writing, but verbally agreed with every claim I mad and am making here. However, for doing the right thing, I’d be better off dead – and that’s exactly the intent of the hospital. I also wrote Paul levy on his blog – and not surprisingly my comment was never published by him.

I learned about the unlicensed beds that were used, and not staffed per budget. I learned about the many statistical games that were played with the data. I learned that the nursing supervisors had been giving wrong information to injured workers about getting timely health care. I learned about supervisors not being included in emergency preparedness education and leadership or in COOP planning.

I got a real education at the BIDMC. I also learned that patient admissions were green lighted for cardiac patients, and that almost 100% of patients with long ER delays for inpatient beds were on the medical services with diagnoses of multiple chronic illnesses. Why the differences? $$$$$ for the cardiac patients and $ for the medical patients.

I learned that there are many great people who work and practice at BIDMC, but that the senior leadership overall is not a part of that group. I learned that information is very heavily filtered as it goes to the top. I learned that many managers and directors are fearful of administrators. I learned that human resources was a joke, and that my boss, who hired out of policy and promoted and evaluated out of policy – was protected by HR managers, directors and VPs.

Paul is not transparent. He is not aware of many of the wrongs that his administrative team are wreaking because the information is so heavily filtered before it ever arrives on his desk. I learned that the CIO, Halamka, is despised by many physicians, and that There are enormous power struggles among the different services of the medical staff. I learned that nurses and nursing are invisible and do not have power nor do they wield influence. There are no directors of nursing – they are subsumed under the umbrella of “clinical operations”.

BIDMC nurses are not unionized and are not represented by the Massachusetts Nursing Association. Nursing there is but a shell of what it was when Joyce Clifford headed up nursing at the Beth Israel Hospital before the merger.

The current leader of nurses is Diane Anderson, who is very fond of making “elevator speeches” and running numbers. She is not visible to nurses, and prove me mistaken, but I don’t think that many nurses would recognize her if she visited their nursing units.

Managers and directors worked under an oppressive and suspicious work atmosphere. I met many dedicated mid-level managers who tried to do the right thing for patients and employees, in spite of the administrative game of “Survivor” that is the real agenda. I also met some of the worst, unethical managers and directors there, as well. And in those cases, they had been in the system for many years. They wielded power well beyond what their positions would have suggested.

I was fired while the senior VPs were away, I was a fresh post-op myself, and I had to request permission to come back later that day for a physician’s appointment. My experience at BIDMC was such that I would never encourage anyone to work there or be a patient there.

A vote for Paul here is a vote to highlight the need for workers to have equitable work conditions and work rules which are applied evenly and ethically.

Meanwhile, I will work for food and shelter – literally. But you will get someone whose health is in the toilet, who can’t afford to purchase that mandatory Mass. health insurance (snort), and who thinks about suicide as about the sole remaining viable option. And because they can’t hurt me any more than if they had just used a lethal weapon, I could care less who knows what was done to me and to the workers for whom I was advocating.

And finally, Jane (and the other FDL leaders) has never contacted me about any of this. Nor has anyone in the so-called progressive community, ever expressed any interest in this.

’specially those who trumpet their fact checking credentials from the mountaintops. Funny how that works.

veritas and boston: I very much appreciate your injection of some…..oh, what’re those dang things called…..oh yeah, FACTS…..into this slanderous diatribe. Wouldn’t hold my breath, though, waiting for a response.

I’ve read his blog — I thought he bled a bit too much, but that’s Paul. I think he’s extremely passionate about defending his institution, and he might be better off working the conciliation beat. He feels he shouldn’t have to, that everyone who works at BI should feel as passionately about their mission as he does. That’s naive. People work for a paycheck, period.

But he’s not cut from the cloth of those who control so much of our economy, and we err if we cast him in with them.

fact-check, people. fact-check. This is more than some of us can handle.

I’ve read his blog — I thought he bled a bit too much, but that’s Paul. I think he’s extremely passionate about defending his institution, and he might be better off working the conciliation beat. He feels he shouldn’t have to, that everyone who works at BI should feel as passionately about their mission as he does. That’s naive. People work for a paycheck, period.

But he’s not cut from the cloth of those who control so much of our economy, and we err if we cast him in with them.

link to article on Food shortages for Iraqis in Syria.

Thanks for the heads up.