So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!
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I don't think one has to understand software to see that something is not quite right with this whole situation. And whatever happened to the rip-roaring success we were promised by the businessmen who were going to save the hospital from the incompetent elected officials? I can re-post Mr. Greenberg's article if anyone needs a reminder of that part of the narrative.
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Last edited by Barry; 08-17-2016 at 11:38 AM.
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I'm still vibrating with outrage at the incredible smear in the Press Democrat frontpage article eleven days ago, which attack both hospital benefactor, Dan Smith and our wonderful new hospital, Sonoma West Medical Center. So this is the letter I wrote to the Press Democrat. What do you all think? This is some truly dirty journalism. It's in the paper of August 5, '16. Go read the original, if you missed it. It's pretty despicable.
Open Letter to the Press Democrat staff writer Martin Espinoza
Martin - It is clear that you and your editors understand the power of newspaper articles to influence public opinion. The strategically placed title of your recent article, “Lawsuit: Hospital Donor Dishonest - Ex-official Goldfarb says Smith asked him to cook Sonoma West books” contains the damning message of your article that thousands of Press Democrat readers have imbibed. This message was carefully positioned above the fold to instantly communicate a poisonous accusation as fact, even to people who simply glance at the headlines.
The contents of Goldfarb's lawsuit and the previous suit by Autumn AndRa, promoted by the same attorney, Daniel Bartley, are completely based upon unsubstantiated allegations. However, as you have reported, Bartley is ready to drop all charges if the hospital agrees to pay $200,000 to AndRa and $250,000 plus a year's pay and legal fees to Goldfarb (who worked at SWMC for only six months). Your one-sided articles assist their attempts to extort money from our district hospital.
Do you really believe that you are absolved from responsibility for the harm your articles have caused to the hospital, as well as to Dan Smith, simply because it is not possible at this stage of the litigation for anyone named in the lawsuits to reply? Is this your idea of journalistic balance? Do you consider it ethical to present damaging accusations as facts without presenting an alternative perspective? Do you feel justified as long as the message of your articles conforms to your own bias, to the position of your editors, and to others who cheer you on?
Dan Smith does not deserve to be pilloried in public after giving everything he has worked to achieve over the past 40 years in order for our community to have a 24 hour emergency hospital so that people's lives can be saved. Moreover, our district hospital deserves to be supported rather than continually attacked in the media. The truth will come out to counter the lies but will you be honest enough to report it?
Sincerely, Gail Raborn
Last edited by Barry; 08-17-2016 at 12:06 PM.
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from The Press Democrat, 8/17:West county’s hospital
EDITOR: Sonoma West Medical Center has certainly had a challenging birth. Yet it lives today and will be more vibrant than ever under the expert guidance of Luke Tharasri and Pipeline Health (“Sebastopol hospital bringing in consultants,” July 9).
Though you would not know it from reading the paper, our hospital’s story isn’t about one person, one couple or even the many who have donated their money and time to make it a reality. It is the story of coming together and caring for one another against overwhelming odds. It is about supporting our police and firefighters, the elderly, infirm and homeless among us. It is about having an emergency room close when a child is injured on the playground, a baby can’t breathe, a young woman has a ruptured tubal pregnancy, our neighbor has a heart attack or a worker is injured in the grape fields.
All of the accusations, lawsuits and false claims printed in the paper don’t hold a candle against saving even one life, not to speak of the many who will be saved in the coming years. We are grateful for being able to participate in a better future for west county and thank everyone who has made it possible.
DAN SMITH and JOAN MARLER
Sebastopol
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I reached out to Dan for comment and he sent the following:
I can't comment directly on the lawsuits because they are from former employees and it is improper for a board member to do so.
Responses will be filed in the next few weeks by the hospital's legal counsel.
You might be interested to know that all of the claims against me have been dropped through an amended complaint filed by Ms. Andra's attorney.
While she is still making claims against the hospital, she has dropped the defamation claim and the claim of tortuous interference with contract and dropped me from the wrongful termination claims. This was done without a court hearing.
The amended complaint is attached.
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I just went and re-read it to confirm my impression. It starts with... This is some truly dirty journalism. It's in the paper of August 5, '16. Go read the original, if you missed it. ...
Dan Smith does not deserve to be pilloried in public after giving everything he has worked to achieve over the past 40 years in order for our community to have a 24 hour emergency hospital so that people's lives can be saved. Moreover, our district hospital deserves to be supported rather than continually attacked in the media. The truth will come out to counter the lies but will you be honest enough to report it?
"The former chief financial officer at Sonoma West Medical Center said a key hospital benefactor asked him to “falsely portray” the hospital’s finances to show positive net profit for the hospital, according to a whistleblower lawsuit filed this week."
the news is that there's a suit. It reports on the contents and gives a tiny bit of context. The only even marginally pejorative in the article is that it uses the adjective "embattled" when talking about the hospital. I don't think any of us disagree with that, right?
Sure, it would be nice if the media was more interested in presenting supportive articles. There aren't a lot of nice fluffy pieces about how beneficial the hospital could be in the PD. But I never have understood the feeling that they're out to destroy it either. Clearly a lot of the community has a protective feeling about SWMC, which is good if it's going to succeed. But the best way to understand a situation is to be able to see what it looks like from eyes that aren't on your side. You can't answer objections if you don't understand why some people find them compelling. From my perspective, the suit never sounded all that firmly grounded and I didn't see anything in the reporting that made the plaintiff believable. The article did nothing to dispel an impression of him as a disgruntled former employee.
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….and it's a story about a faulty software program, developed by a major donor to the "Doc/Cop" campaign, donor to the hospital, lender to the hospital, and President of the Board. It's the continued story (not a new one) of Mr. Smith's conflict of interests.from The Press Democrat, 8/17:West county’s hospital
EDITOR: ...our hospital’s story isn’t about one person, one couple or even the many who have donated their money and time to make it a reality. It is the story of coming together and caring for one another against overwhelming odds. It is about supporting our police and firefighters, the elderly, infirm and homeless among us. It is about having an emergency room close when a child is injured on the playground, a baby can’t breathe, a young woman has a ruptured tubal pregnancy, our neighbor has a heart attack or a worker is injured in the grape fields….
Sebastopol
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Please, tell us all about the complexities of the software business. I, for one, don't know. But since it seems to be a prerequisite for assessing this situation, and you clearly have insight, please share.
Meanwhile, I can tell you about my personal experience working with Farmer Dan Smith, his "philanthropy," and his cloud-based software business ventures. He did the same thing with the Redwood Empire Farmers Market. While he had absolutely nothing to do with the actual securing of the farmers market at the Vets Building in Santa Rosa, he was more than willing to donate monies towards much needed press and advertising, but it came with a price. He insisted on being Board Treasurer, on having his appointee as President, and proceeded to use every opportunity to leverage his "philanthropy" as he relentlessly pushed his cloud-based wholesale software program (when he wasn't off to the Philippines trying to sell his hospital program) onto the vendors, who simply weren't interested. If it didn't involve the organization needing $$ he was no where to be found. As soon as it came to needing $$, however, there he was to generously write a check and then it was about how cloud-based software was going to save the farms….till you were blue in the face.
It took us a very long time and a lot of heart-ache to finally rid Dan Smith and his ego from the market administration, but we finally did. What made us a better organization, however, than the previous one- we didn't have to ban his farm in order to do it. We actually maintained moral principles. But the Smith recipe is the same as with the hospital. Donate+ demand+ leverage= conflict of interest. And no- you don't need to know about the complexities of farmers markets in order to understand the writing when it's on the wall.
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And anyone who has read the articles over the past 10 years -- both in the PD and SWT&N -- as a continuum rather than each one being a single piece in and of itself would know that, or be able to deduce it with a little thoughtful analysis.
….and it's a story about a faulty software program, developed by a major donor to the "Doc/Cop" campaign, donor to the hospital, lender to the hospital, and President of the Board. It's the continued story (not a new one) of Mr. Smith's conflict of interests.
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Dear Gail,
Thank you for posting this and writing to the PD. Somehow I doubt they will even respond.
I too am saddened by the attacks on Dan and the hospital. This seems to have been going on since before the hospital even started. I am relatively new to the area so dont know the whole history of Palm Drive, but I can tell you as an employee there now I sadly spend a lot of time defending SWMC to people who seem to hold the shadow of Palm Drive as the same as the new hospital. The bad publicity only makes this worse.The only positive press i have seen was in the Gazette. I too would use the word "embattled".
As an employee, I can say that the atmosphere inside SWMC is one of a community effort, with the small size being more intimate and frankly more friendly than the larger hospitals in the area. I personally have had some rather unpleasant encounters with Memorial Hospital and Sutter. I waited 2.5 hours in the Sutter ER last year, with level 8 back pain. Their response to the letter I wrote about my whole horrible experience was that they were sorry for my "inconvenience".
Myself and other employees at SWMC regularly hear gratitude from the patients we care for, happy that they have their community hospital back, where they can get help close to home and without all of the layers of process they have to go through at the bigger hospitals. Our ER brings people in right away, you don't see masses of people waiting for hours to be seen.
As for Dan Smith, I have encountered him walking the halls, talking with employees, and especially in the earlier days, being available essentially 24/7 to help out in anyway. I personally have never seem him pressing his supposed hidden agenda, although I am obviously not privy to any administrative goings on. I can say that compared to many hospital EMR software I have used, the Harmoni software is quite user friendly, and I am not aware of any patient care issues that are allegedly happening. It saddens me to see people attacking this incredibly generous man.
The only negative thing I have to say is that the Pipeline group, the supposed saviors of the hospital, are not contributing in any way to this community feel. They came in and made massive layoffs with no communication with the employees at all. The only information we have gotten is through the articles in the newspaper. The morale in the hospital has dropped significantly among the staff, who are working diligently to compensate for the sudden changes, for which no plan was put in place at all, and to continue to offer excellent care.
I have been so happy to be a part of this wonderful community effort, and pray that it will turn itself around and be able to keep offering quality and compassionate care to our community.
Raye Elaine
Last edited by Barry; 08-19-2016 at 07:19 PM.
Raye Elaine, M.A. Spiritual Psychology and the Healing Arts
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I realize a lot of the current hospital employees haven't been here very long, but a good way to get up to speed on what's been happening at Palm Drive (both as a district and as a hospital) is to look through the archives of both the Press Democrat and the local paper Sonoma West Times & News. Even if you believe the local press is out to get a humble philanthropist, there are patterns of behavior that emerge as you wade through the detritus of more than a decade and a half of struggles as a public entity. After you do that, talk to locals who have been watching this for years. And when you do look around, please note all the "positive" stories that have been written over the years.
Last edited by Barry; 08-19-2016 at 07:19 PM.
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SWMC sent out its July financial report late Friday and the operating loss for the month of July alone is $1,161,182. June’s operating loss was restated up by $120,716. The total operating loss for nine months through July is just over $11 million.
SWMC’s business plan predicted an operating loss of $881,000 for the entire first year of operation, with even sunnier projections of success in a very short amount of time.
The Palm Drive Health Care District was formed in 2000. In 16 years the hospital — Palm Drive and SWMC — has had 17 acting, temporary and permanent CEOs. That includes those introduced publicly as CEOs whose names were later withdrawn for one reason or another.
That is not an attack on the people who started this thing in good faith or the many employees that have come and gone in the past two-plus years since Palm Drive Hospital closed.
Pipeline has not only laid off 16 percent of the hospital's administrative staff, it has also closed all of the much-ballyhooed institutes as cost-cutting measures.
Those are the facts. Unless a big donor steps up, between payroll and the Pipeline contract I don't see how it's going to survive and I'm convinced the mounting losses will somehow end up on the backs of the taxpayers.
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In response to those who believe there are unjustified attacks against the hospital or Dan Smith personally let me say that I have nothing against the hospital or Dan. I believe Dan is altruistic for the most part and truly believes in the hospital. The problem is that wishing it is was a successful endeavor does not make it so. It consistently loses money, has staff turnover at an alarming rate, has gone bankrupt 3 times and is now headed down that same familiar path to oblivion. All this with a large taxpayer subsidy (well, at least from property owners). As Dick shows the hospital is not viable financially, period, end of discussion. Where I live along the river corridor it is not the closest facility and many of the people in the district can't even use it due to having Kaiser or other insurance. These are the objections as I see it. I'm going to be forced to pay for this soon to be shuttered facility for how many more years?
Now, if we had single payer health care it might be a different story......
Last edited by Barry; 08-21-2016 at 10:19 AM.
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I totally agree on single-payer. The most criminal thing about what's happening at Palm Drive/SWMC is that the our national health care delivery system is designed for such "small time" endeavors to fail. PDHCD/SWMC is failing because of externalities and, unfortunately, no amount of wishful thinking will make it work. It's going to take many election cycles and the death of the modern Republican Party (yes, I said it: and the right-wing of the national Dem Party for that matter) for our health care system to ever function rationally. And getting big insurance and pharma money (well — all big money) out of our election system.
Last edited by Barry; 08-21-2016 at 10:20 AM.
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I have a different political/medical analysis on the meta picture of us health care and the impossibility of a small hospital in Sebastopol. First hospital care mostly is outdated 20th century medicine, dirty dangerous places it is best to avoid, lots of stats and studies on this which will become more clear as medicine continues to holistically advance. Yes let's continue to move away from the private insurance model, obamacare is an important first step, the government can be a backup, but it's best if we pay for the care we need as we're able.
We need to continue to shrink and consolidate the hospital strategy of health care, for sure in the developed world, because it's an expensive burden which sucks up health care dollars to the detriment of people's health while generating huge profits for large corporations unnecessary for Healthcare. Just look at the current contract the palm drive district has for managing it's hospital, vulture capitalism because the district voters are dead to knowledge, the majority anyway, and we will all pay and pay and pay, till the vulture flies away...
Last edited by Barry; 08-21-2016 at 10:20 AM.
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Well said rossmen — although being a socialist at heart, I'm all in favor of free health care for all, paid for by returning to a progressive tax system that doesn't punish people for the crime of being poor. Obamacare hits hospitals hard with penalties for recidivism and patients getting sick(er) from spending time in them. I think one of the goals of OC was to get rid of small hospitals. Here's a March 16 report from U.S. News & World Report with some numbers. I don't think OC had that much to do with Palm Drive's demise or the current situation at SWMC, but it sure won't help should the skies open up and it starts to magically rain money and insured patients on that poor, battered facility.
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Even after the vulture flies away.
In case it isn't clear I believe that people will slap their heads and proclaim, "why were we/they so stupid about that old hospital, we're still paying for it!"
Of course prediction is a dangerous game. I thought e-tard would resign after his pension was vested. Instead he's stuck it out to the end of his term for an additional 13k/yr, one tough hombre even in his underwear : )_
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Did you go to any of the "Open Our Hospital" presentations?
The head-slappers should have seen it coming.
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from the Press Democrat, 8/22:
Unfair article
EDITOR: It is clear that you understand the power of newspaper articles to influence public opinion. The strategically placed title of your Aug. 5 article, “Lawsuit: Hospital donor dishonest — Ex-official Goldfarb says Smith asked him to cook Sonoma West books,” contains an intentionally damning message based upon completely unsubstantiated allegations. This headline was carefully positioned on the front page above the fold to instantly communicate a poisonous accusation as fact, even to people who simply glance at the headlines.
Do you really believe that you are absolved from responsibility for the harm this article and others have caused to the hospital, as well as to Dan Smith, simply because it is not possible at this stage of the litigation for anyone named in the lawsuit to reply? Is this your idea of journalistic balance?
Smith doesn’t deserve to be pilloried in public after giving everything he has worked to achieve over the past 40 years in order for west county to have a 24-hour emergency hospital. Moreover, this district hospital deserves to be supported rather than continually attacked in the media. The truth will come out to counter the lies, but will you be honest enough to fully report it?
GAIL RABORN
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Wow, I am sad to say I have been ignorant of how bad this is. Does seem pretty hopeless. Why hire a new management company if it is not feasible to stay open? Too bad, it really has been of benefit to the community. I brought my auntie to the ED when she went into renal failure from her cancer. I was grateful for the quick, personal and compassionate care she received.
Raye Elaine, M.A. Spiritual Psychology and the Healing Arts
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