Roy Exum
In 1978, a Global Positioning System (GPS) was invented by a black sharecropper’s daughter from Virginia and today “Nav” is the most requested option on a new car. President Jimmy Carter signed a bill that made “home-brewed beer” legal, the Yankees won the World Series, Dallas won the Super Bowl, and a spectacular three-year-old, Affirmed, sent thoroughbred racing a-gaga winning the Kentucky Derby. The Bee Gees ruled the airways, the three Gibb brothers masterful at harmony, be it with “Stayin’ Alive” or “Night Fever,” and in the hit movie National Lampoon’s ‘Animal House,’ John Vernon quite famously told John Belushi, playing as John "Bluto" Blutarsky, “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."
“Turning right on red” was made legal for drivers across the United States, and on a smaller but hardly an insignificant moment, Jeffery Wilkerson, was hired as a fledgling Registered Nurse at Chattanooga’s Erlanger Hospital.
On Friday, after a figurative lifetime of 41 years, 9 months, and 24 days of loyalty to The Baroness, Jeffery was “absolutely sickened” when Erlanger included him in the hospital’s 93-person layoff on Friday. He had carefully planned to retire in 2021 but, “Sorry, your job has been eliminated. I am totally shocked. … what are they going to say to me … ‘thanks for your service?’” he asked incredulously.
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FROM A NEWLY UNEMPLOYED NURSE EDUCATOR
I have been an employee of Erlanger for many years. I have always supported and defended Erlanger anytime anyone said anything against them. We are so underfunded how can an organization keep up? That was my argument. Your previous articles about Erlanger’s downfall stung, as I knew there was truth to the stories, but still I defended.
However, on Friday my eyes were opened. I am one of the 93 employees whose positions were eliminated on 6/19. You see, I had a “non-clinical” job as a nurse educator. Let me briefly describe what a nurse educator does. We bring on new employees and make sure they are trained properly for the specialty they have been hired for. We make sure our nurses stay up to date on the latest and maintain their education throughout the year.
We are the go-to person for clinical care questions on a daily (and nightly) basis. Many of us also serve on quality improvement committees to improve patient care, experience, and processes. Side note: my non-clinical job consisted of a good portion of my hours being on the floor in patient care, doing direct clinical nursing care.
How can an organization claim to care for their patients when they get rid of nurse educators? How can they claim their nurses are valued when the organization clearly doesn’t value the nurse educators who train the front lines? How are these nurses going to stay up to date on the latest evidence-based care? Shame on you Erlanger!
When nurses are not trained properly three things happen: quality care goes down, mistakes are made, and patients die.
Mr. Exum, I ask you, is executive leadership trying to drive my beloved Erlanger into the ground?
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THE “COVID FLOOR” IS MUCH DIFFERENT
Saddling Erlanger nurses with dangerous 8-1 patient-nurse ratios that is considered by some veteran nursing pros as nigh impossible, but COVID-19 nursing is altogether a different thing. I am told that at least three times last week there were two nurses assigned to a 12-hour shift for 14 extremely sick patients on the specialized coronavirus floor. On Thursday at noon, there were four circulating, thank goodness. A patient on a respirator, as you may easily guess, requires constant attention but, far worse, between every visit a nurse must remove one set of highly protective clothing and replace it with a completely new set. Start to finish, we’re talking 10 minutes per change. Times seven patients on her side of the room, that’s over an hour, and that’s if not one in what’s half of a day needs assistance to use the bathroom, or wants a meal, or requires meds, or asks you hold the cell phone to see his wife and to tell her he loves her. How big a hero you imagine it takes for one of our nurses to handle that? And, yes, that’s day after day … after day.
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“THIS WILL WORK AGAINGST YOU … THIS NOTE MEANS NOTHING … “
Roy … My daughter is an employee of Erlanger and she is pregnant and due any day. She went to her ob/gyn, he suggested due to the nature of her job to take the rest of her time off. He even put it in writing, they told her it would still count against her and that his note means nothing... This is why they are getting all the negative press they are getting. In a world of uncertainty, they respond by firing and threatening the people they brought in to protect and care for their patients. They are sacrificing the health and well-being of their employees to make a buck...this is disgusting.
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SON DRIVES SICK MOM TO ERLANGER’S ER; THEN THEY WAIT 8 HOURS
I have been reading your articles regarding Erlanger in The Chattanoogan and want to thank you for them! Your observations are right on target and are in line with my experiences taking my elderly mother from her assisted living facility to the emergency room at 9 p.m., trying to avoid the $1,200 ambulance fee.
It became painfully obvious (my Mom was very ill yet not near death), as we waited for 8 hours through the night in the waiting room, that many citizens were using the emergency rooms at Erlanger and Memorial, as a doctor's office. They know that they can't afford, or will not pay, for a doctor appointment, so they crowd into the emergency room as they know they will be seen and they can just refuse to pay, or pay as they can.
Congress has, to my knowledge, made it illegal to turn people away from a public hospital. That night there was such a crowd in line that some of them announced that they were leaving for "the other hospital," only to return a couple of hours later, stating that the lines there were longer. We have, and have had for some time, a disaster in Tennessee regarding health care. That night I learned that ambulance riders got taken in ahead of waiting patients. I'm not sure how that arrangement was made, yet it made me reassess the decision to try and save the money.
I conclude, as you have, that the system is broken. We need a new structure and new support mechanisms. We can talk about it in terms of conservative/liberal, yet it will not solve the problems. One of my sons lives in Brooklyn, NY. along with 3 million other people. Across the river in Manhattan there are 6 million more.
Perhaps the great state of Tennessee could learn from them. How do they do it? And what can be learned? I think these are interesting questions!
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WHEN MEDICAL CARE IS FREE, IT HAS NO VALUE
Thank you for working so hard to help Erlanger. We know you're being criticized and challenged because of your true words.
My husband and his co-workers are dealing with lots of verbal abuse from patients as they call to schedule appointments, reschedule appointments, or remind them of appointments. They try to emphasize that these appointment slots are valuable as they're so far behind after this shutdown and they ask politely that they call if they're not going to make it, but they still have daily no-shows and very late patients.
When people say we need free healthcare for all, they have no idea what this means. If it costs nothing, then it's not valuable to the receiver. When we lived in Africa working with a mission hospital that provided valuable care, the patients were expected to pay for their care. It was a very small amount, but they gladly and thankfully paid it. Everyone knew that saying about giving someone a fish versus teaching them to fish. This indigent care debate will continue, but it's destroying Erlanger as you know! My husband is afraid he'll be the next to lose his job since he's over 60.
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A SMALL VOICE THAT IS HEARD LOUD
Mr. Exum, As to whether I should speak to you, well, my bosses do not like me. Also, I should say that too many people now days refuse to act or speak out because of their own welfare. That is a natural response, I suppose, but it is also selfish. As a Christian I refuse to say nothing to save a few hairs. If I lose my job, then God will find me another one … I have no doubt. Not only that, if the hospital plans on getting rid of me, I suppose it really will not make much difference. The hospital has a great many problems and so does our department. I will speak to you about many of the problems we have dealt with. and the hospital has refused to deal with them.
I currently work at Erlanger Health System as a maintenance technician in the Engineering Department. I have only been at Erlanger for a relatively short time, but I have seen more than enough to irritate my conscience and instigate action, so here are the facts.
As a department we deal with Erlanger North, Erlanger East, the Baroness Campus, as well as many doctors’ offices and other facilities in the Tri-State area. Even during good times, we are stretched so thin we almost are never able to catch all our calls or fix all the problems.
For maintenance technicians, that will exclude the plumbers, electricians, as well as our office staff. We have around 20 people that I can count right now. With the others included we have around 30. We have one shift for Erlanger North which is first, we have three shifts for Baroness and East, and we have only first shift for the outlier buildings. Of those people, two of them work at Erlanger North on first, the other about 2/3’s work at Baroness, and the rest work at East, both of which has three shifts.
We also at the current time have two apprentices, but do not let the title fool you. Not only do they get paid less but even during normal conditions they are still required to cover the same amount of area as the full technicians without sympathy. They make around twelve dollars an hour compared to most of the techs which start out at around twenty. Also, to add insult to injury, the hospital doesn’t actually have a training program so unless they go back to school they almost never get raised up to a full position as a tech.
This does not even take into consideration that most people in the area that work in trades know all too well about Erlanger and refuse to come here. Occasionally, we will get someone that comes in unawares and is hired on for a full-time position, however, it usually never turns out well. Initially someone comes in for an interview and are told of all the wonderful things they will receive in benefits, as well as the workload and the position's duties.
Only later on they find out that the raise they were told they were going to receive isn’t going to be given, and the duties they were told they were going to be doing were entirely different from what they applied for, and the workload is much larger than initially told. When they complain to management the bosses tell them that they will investigate it if possible, but if not, it might be best for them to go somewhere else.
Most of the time we are simply told that we should be thankful that we have a job. So, even in the best of times, it is dismal to say the least.
Our current situation is far worse if that can be imagined. Right now, we only have about three people on each shift at the Baroness campus, none at Erlanger North, and another one to two at Erlanger East. Not only that, but the three at the Baroness campus are required to maintain all the outbuildings as well as Erlanger North if they call.
In late April, our bosses told us that our hours would be changing to one week on and one week off. Apparently, this was for our benefit so that we could get unemployment. Now that our hours have changed, we still are having problems getting unemployment. When one of us spoke to the Department of Labor they told us that their system was not set up for such hours which means that the third week of filing, your claim will be kicked out of the system and you have to set up the whole claim again. When one of our employees spoke to a supervisor about the problem, he told them that it was not his problem.
Earlier when we were trying to apply for unemployment and were having these problems, we tried contacting one of the HR bosses about the problem but they told us that they did not have the time to help us so it was our problem, not theirs. We have dealt with one problem after another without any aid whatsoever. No matter what we do no one wants to take responsibility of the situation. (Our department leaders)
They knew that we would have problems, so they refuse to comment. On a side note, since we only have three to four workers at a time at the hospital it makes it out of the question to get all our calls. A major issue in our department is our leadership, or lack thereof.
I will also say that across the board the HR department is a waste of time. This is not just because of things that have happened to my department but because of what I have heard all over the hospital. If someone brings up a problem, it just gets swept under the rug, and the people responsible never get punished. Think about all those people that have been fired and the HR department never did a thing about it or questioned it.
I will finish this letter with a few little thoughts to ponder. Last year the whole hospital prior to Spegel’s removal was told that we had no money and financially falling short of the mark. Then miraculously when he had to defend himself it was made public by his own admission that he had saved the hospital $250 million that was currently in the bank. So what people must be telling me is that since that time nine months ago the hospital has not only lost the money the federal government gave them during COVID-19, but they have also lost all of that money.
How is it that every one of us in our department are losing our jobs and yet contractors are walking around the hospital in droves. Most of these contracts charge $60-$85 per hour per person and I only make a little more than $20. I may have never been able to finish my degree, but I can do basic math, and this just doesn’t add up.
By the way, I have already applied for new jobs, and so have many of the people I work with.
As for my job, I am not worried at all. God has me in His hands.
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Proverbs 3:27-29 New International Version (NIV): Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act.
Do not say to your neighbor, “Come back tomorrow and I’ll give it to you”— when you already have it with you. Do not plot harm against your neighbor, who lives trustfully near you.”
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The Erlanger Board of Trustees will meet on Thursday at the hospital. If you have a comment and/or a question, that you would like to be included in the Hospital’s public record, please address it to Linda Moss Mines, Chair, Erlanger Hospital Board of Trustees, ERLANGER MEDICAL CENTER, 975 East Third Street, Chattanooga, TN 37403. You must include your contact information, including your full name, mailing address, and a workable telephone number. You should state you are a citizen of Hamilton County, and request an answer to a well-presented question. Please abstain from any profanity, rude discourse, or threatening language.
royexum@aol.com