Roy Exum
So here comes this letter from a schoolteacher who, unfortunately, suffered a stroke and was rushed to the Erlanger emergency room just last week. I did not solicit this letter nor did I encourage it. It came as the result of several articles I have written this week about our region’s level one trauma center.
Never in my life would I have dreamed in the past week what I have found; hundreds of members of the Erlanger family have bravely shared their pain and frustration since Will Jackson became the CEO last September.
It a frightful manner, it is believed Erlanger is in serious jeopardy due to its president, Will Jackson, its twiddle-thumbed board, and its currently overwhelmed executive team. Earlier this week it was widely rumored the hospital will terminate up to 200 non-essential employees today, this after 11 mid-level managers were laid off, including Children’s Hospital CEO Don Mueller.
The schoolteacher writes: I was sent to Erlanger on Sunday morning with symptoms of a stroke. Once there I experienced several concerning events during my 29-hour stay.
* -- 1) I was asked to provide a urine sample in a bathroom that was filled with blood clots in the ER. The blood clots were on the walls, sink, and floor.
* -- 2) I was given injections of blood thinner but not given a heart monitor because THEY DID NOT HAVE ENOUGH! Yes, I was told they did not have any. I was given one to wear almost 12 hours after being on site because one had become available. I hope the device was available due to a discharge not death! Note, I was in the stroke unit.
* -- 3) I was wheeled around in broken wheelchairs into areas for testing that used only the lighting from the windows. After reading all of the (recent) articles about the hospital, I wonder if there were issues about costs for using lights.
* -- 4) The equipment in my room, table, and chair did not work correctly.
* -- 5) Initially, there was no phone in my room as they did not have a phone for me to use. It seems that phones in the rooms of the stoke unit are not the norm as they don't have many. They expect the patients to use their cell phones. I did not have mine with me at the time of the crisis.
* -- 6) The communication about my room number was a hot mess. The poor orderly was given the incorrect room number and so was my family. Both groups were given vastly different numbers. My family was also given incorrect information about visitation. Good thing I was not in serious condition!
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As a public-school teacher, it was like walking into a poorly funded school. Very scary since my life depended upon this hospital having what I needed. I did have a stroke. Thankfully, not a major event but still an event. I am at home and thankful but I also worry that if I have a major event I might not survive even though it is the 21st century because this medical center is so poorly run that it lacks equipment.
Overall, I had a great experience with the staff. I tried very hard to be an easy patient and not ask for much as it became clear that there are issues. In a school if equipment is missing or broken, then usually the staff is overworked. That seems to be the case for this hospital.
I am deeply concerned with the state of Erlanger. I have been in before as a patient for surgery in the past and it was far better run and equipped 16 years ago.
I do hope you are able to be the catalyst for change to improve this medical center.
Keep working to protect the patients who need this medical center to be at its best to serve us in a time of crisis!
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AMONG MY EMAILS …
REGISTRATION EMPLOYEES FORCED TO WORK “OFF THE CLOCK”
Thank you so much for airing the abuse Erlanger dishes out to employees as well as the unsafe practices.
Did you know that Erlanger is forcing registration employees to work OFF the clock and have been for some time now to keep them from getting overtime. They are so short staffed that they have to have overtime to cover their shifts as expected. THIS IS SO WRONG! The fear and intimidation are relentless.
Also, did you know that Erlanger has issued a directive to all employees that anyone who talks to, or emails Roy Exum, will be immediately fired and “black-listed” from getting another job?
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GET PAID FOR 4 HOURS, THEN BE ‘ON CALL’ FOR ANOTHER 8 AT $2.50 AN HOUR!
No one has even mentioned radiology at North and what has been done to them. I have a good friend in radiology who is distraught over trying to pay bills and make ends meet without losing her home or auto. Since April 1, 2020, Mr. Jackson decided to only let them work four hours out of the 12-hour shift and make them take calls for the other eight hours at $2.50 an hour!!!! No travel pay. So, they stayed there eight hours making less than $20 a night. The four hours put them over the unemployment limit. They still have their hours cut.
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OMINOUS MEETING AT ERLANGER NORTH ON WEDNESDAY, 7 A.M.
Furthermore, if you could help here in any way it would be greatly appreciated. There is an employee meeting June 24, 2020 at Erlanger North at 7 a.m. with Mr. Jackson. This is just a few days before the new fiscal year. There are no meetings on other campuses. We fear he intends to close Erlanger North down. Red Bank Charter has a law preventing the closure of the Red Bank Hospital. We also have been told there will be 200 jobs cut today.
We fear for our jobs. North is a busy hospital and ER. We need someone to get the Red Bank Charter and an attorney to help us out. Thank you for advocating for Erlanger nurses.
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“THE CHAIN OF COMMAND GOT US NOWHERE” … IT’S ALL SPIRALING NOW”
I feel like all of this outcry would be avoided if we just felt like upper management listened to us. In the past few months, Dr. Jackson has been around on the units much more than any of the upper leaders. But I don’t think he realized what was brewing, we were told to follow our chain of command which got us nowhere.
Nurses were impressed, he listened. Which was more than we have been getting. Staff had not had a raise in years, the nursing matrix that was supposed to be our “pay for performance” that we were told we would actually get a raise this year -- flopped.
Nurses who leveled up after jumping through hoops were to only get a $1,000 lump sum. Taxed at that. Needless to say, any nurse who did the work to maintain their level … got nothing.
Then there is the whole team nursing decision and reveal. We were pretty much told this is what is happening, and you will go from a ratio of five generally to two nurses and a tech for 12 patients. “But you are working as a team”, we were told. We were expected to go to each room as a team.
This went over like a lead balloon to staff who were already beaten down. On the horizon looming is the creation of a centralized staffing office. All staffing would be handled not by the managers, but by this office. They would make the area's schedules, decided how many and who would be sent here and there. There is a float pool, mind you and they make 10 more dollars an hour than a nurse who picks a home unit. This has been disastrous.
You have a director of a big staffing office who hasn’t even been a nurse very long, Clinical Staff Leaders and then PCTs who decide who and what staff a unit can have. Pulling nurses all over the hospital out of their comfort zone and these regular staff get nothing, not the 10 extra dollars to be inconvenienced or stressed to go to a foreign unit. They get nothing. Nurses and techs were angry.
So, you see it’s all spiraling. Now, a PCT or someone who knows nothing about staff obligations, staff babysitting issues is making a nurse’s schedule for six weeks at a time. Taking even more of any perk we have away. COVID hits and the decision is made for no overtime, prn and part time employees can’t work. They leave or go ‘travel nurse.’
Nurses are leaving, then the economy opens up. Now, due to all these nurses leaving or finding other means to survive, we are short staffed- again. Our floor areas have very sick patients, many nurses who leave say their ICU patients at their hospital are the same as what they had on the floor at Erlanger.
It is almost impossible these days to care for even six sick floor patients, much less than seven or eight.
Our clinical staff leader who you could count on as your resource or other pair of hands was made to always have just as many patients. We have no help, no extra hands, or no more experienced brain to pick. They are just trying to keep up like the rest of us. We are all tired, and this outcry for help, from you or a union should be viewed as us caring. Us caring for Erlanger, the place we chose to stay and work.
We could all easily find another nursing job. There are good nurses at Erlanger who care about their patients and coworkers. We want to take good care of you. If we don’t win and things continue, at least we can say we tried.
Our Nurse Directors are leaving or stepping down at an alarming rate. This should be looked at as well. Why? Everyday someone else is gone.
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ANY FOOL WOULD TAKE UNEMPLOYMENT THAN BE A ‘PCT’
The primary reason there are no PCTs (patient care technicians) is because these people work paycheck to paycheck. A PCT can make more per week on unemployment than they would earn as a PCT at Erlanger. No hassle, no over-worked. No overtime. No worries. What would you prefer?
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“IF WE TALK, WE ARE THE PROBLEM,” ATTRIBUTED TO JAN KEYS
Please don’t give up on us here at Erlanger! If we speak up, we will be fired, so please keep my name confidential. I have been with Erlanger over 30 years and have never seen anything like what is going on now. You are so spot on about Jan, Ted, and Angela and its mostly Jan. I have seen her tell nurses that if we talk “we are the problem”. I only have a few years left to suffer through this hell we are now in, but I’m really worried about my fellow nurses (who are) being broken down by such an administration we now have. The “team” nursing is such (expletive) that is meant to spread to few nurses for many patients that cannot care for themselves. Please Roy … I beg you to stay on this … you are our only hope!
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“COMPLETELY IN LINE WITH YOUR REPORT”
Beautiful article! We moved from Florida seven years ago and my wife began working at Erlanger as an IV nurse at that time. The stories she told about the abuse that she and her co-workers suffered at the hand of Jan Keyes is completely in line with your report. Thank you for speaking plainly and honestly.
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A PROUD GRANDFATHER URGES THIS ‘IMPORTANT ISSUE’
Roy, this may be one of the most important issues you have taken on. I have twin grandchildren who were born at 23 weeks. Today they are college seniors who have lived a very normal and to date successful lives. They were born in Knoxville at East Tennessee Children's Hospital. At 23 weeks they were not expected to survive. Each weighed about one pound and were about the size of my fist. I told my wife when we saw them on the evening of their birth that they would not be there in the morning.
Due to the superb care of the NICU nursing staff, they were there. They each had a nurse assigned to them 24/7 from Sept. 29 until Jan. 13 when they came home. There is no replacement for the skilled nurses who serve in these units, they have a special skill and more importantly a special heart for these premature newborns. Because of that I have two soon to be UTK and MTSU graduates. If Erlanger cannot support a NICU properly they should not be allowed to accept those cases. End of story!!
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AND NOW, “THE REST OF THE STORY”
“Roy, what a crying shame to learn that the NICU (at Children’s) has been shuttered. That was one of your grandfather's pet projects back in the day. (Hospital Board Chairman Roy McDonald) personally hired my mother, Mary C. Cooper, RN to start what than as called the Premature Baby Unit at the old T.C. Thompson Children's.
“Mr. Roy,” (as everyone called him) sent her to hospitals up east and as far west as St. Louis to learn best practices then in use. I remember her going to Boston (she was a graduate of Boston Children's Hospital), NYC, and St. Louis. Except for one year as Thompson's acting head nurse, Mom ran, first the Preemie Unit, and then the NICU when Thompson moved to the Erlanger campus.
She was heavily involved in the design and the move to East Third Street and wrote the Procedure Manual for the NICU. She stayed on until she was 70 at the request of then administrator Jim Lamb. She always said the NICU was a blessing to families of the less fortunate in our community whose children were born prematurely at a higher rate than the more affluent.
Some of those benefited as well though. Alan Casey once wept as he told me how his daughter was saved by the Preemie Unit at T.C. Thompson. The late Betty Serodino also told me how grateful she was for my mother and that Chattanooga had that medical resource. But you and I know it was Mr. Roy's vision.
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POST SCRIPT: There came a day when Chattanooga’s mayor, the county judge, the elder Senator Bill Brock, the presidents of the Chattanooga’s top three banks and whoever was the congressman showed up at my grandfather’s office and demanded to see him. My grandfather would say later he was completely taken by surprise, since every man there would call him often because he had bought the old Chattanooga News, combined it with his grocery chain’s Free Press, and had the Chattanooga News-Free Press on a roll.
The surprise wasn’t by accident; they didn’t want him to have time to get out of the favor that they insisted: “Erlanger is going out of business. It’s broke. Mr. Roy, you can save the hospital and we, as a group, are prepared to get you whatever money it takes. It’ll just be for a year or two, we hope until you can put an executive team together that you will direct … and we’ll use our combined resources to make it successful. Now, you just tell us what salary you want, and we’ll have the first year’s lump sum delivered this afternoon.”
My grandfather told me he looked at his friends. “I’ve never been as busy in my life, but a hospital is this town’s biggest asset. If you do it right, the hospital needs to make a profit but never a big one … I cannot do it the way you describe ... cannot and will not … but I’ll tell you what I’m willing to do. I’ll look over it for a while if I have complete control. I’ll pick the board but, boys, I never want to be paid as much as a dime. This falls under my service to our community … just incidental expenses which won’t be much. I don’t want an office, just a secretary who can get in touch with me. We got to have a top-quality hospital.” That’s how it happened.
“For a while” lasted the next 38 years. He spent every Sunday afternoon, laughing that doctors were the greediest tribe on earth, and soon began putting the key people he would discover into the key jobs. He also became aware the day was fast approaching when an average working man would be smothered if catastrophic illness were to hit his family. That’s when he flew down to Cuba, paid $1,000 for the Charter of Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Tennessee and started up what you can now see has saved millions of lives. He was the BC-BS Board Chairman for its first 42 years and in keeping with his standards, never accepted a dime for his “service to the community.”
He had a special affinity for Children’s Hospital and did indeed, have an early vision for Preemie care as well as emergency children’s care. At the time Children’s opened it’s special “Premature Baby Unit” it was one of about 20 in the entire nation. Its staff was handpicked. It had the best of equipment, a good helping of snazzy machines from England, Switzerland, and Germany, and it had a welcoming revolving door for other hospital executives, inquiring medical-school professors, delegations from foreign countries and the like. “I want them to learn all they can from us … and all we can learn from them.”
To call Mrs. Cooper a nurse was akin calling Babe Ruth a scrub batter. For many years Children’s Hospital was the gold standard. One time Life magazine did a big spread on the unit and my grandfather deferred all questions and interview requests to Mrs. Cooper with the exception of one quote: “We don’t want publicity … all we want is to save children’s lives.”
That they did with mind-boggling mortality numbers. And that’s the way it happened … with this one last note. Mrs. Cooper’s husband, Brainard, was the brilliant editor at my grandfather’s News-Free Press and once, at a newspaper staff gathering, she shared with my grandfather she wished she could do more for children. “Well, I declare,” he told her with delight most assuredly on his face. “Be in my office at 10 o’clock tomorrow morning, and when you get to Children’s for your 7 a.m. shift, tell Mr. So-and-so you’ve got to meet with me at my request.” (The letter above was written by her son, Brainard Jr., and Mrs. Cooper helped deliver me, Roy McDonald Exum, as a newborn.)
royexum@aol.com