I heard that every Palm Drive employee got Pink Slipped today.(3/31)
[PD article is here. ~ Barry]
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I heard that every Palm Drive employee got Pink Slipped today.(3/31)
[PD article is here. ~ Barry]
The following two letters to the editor appeared in the PD today, following up on its Sun. article. This issue interests me, partly since I live in Sebastopol. I will also be teaching a course called "Ethics in Health Care" at Dominican University in San Rafael in the fall of 2014. I think health care has been in crisis for many years here in the U.S., partly because of its excessive corporatization and the power of the pharmaceutical industry.
Wither Palm Drive?
EDITOR: I'm writing as an employee of Palm Drive Hospital. I've worked here for seven amazing years, most recently as a respiratory therapist. It's with great sadness that I'm learning of the layoffs and possible closing (“Palm Drive Hospital warns of playoffs,” Sunday). Palm Drive Hospital has gone through troubled times, and some poor decisions have been made by management. Despite all this, working here was like coming home.
My co-workers are like my family. We work 12 hours, side by side, caring for the community and saving lives. The community may view us as a sinking ship, and there may not be help for us this time, but the heart of Palm Drive isn't its management but its employees.
It's tough having the substantial threat of being jobless, but equally as dire is the fear of losing my co-workers. I worry for them as much as they worry for me. It's as if a family is about to be dispersed. We care about one another, and we care about the people we serve. We are the local choice because we're the embodiment of the community. We help one another through tough times and make one another laugh even in light of dark news. After all, isn't that the quality that makes west county what it is?
GEORGE GRIESE, Santa Rosa
Saving Palm Drive
EDITOR: There's another “save” option for Palm Drive Hospital rather than mass layoffs. Our local area hosts thriving numbers of integrative medical practitioners. Integrative medicine combines the best of standard drug/chemical-oriented therapy with natural approaches. This assists the body to heal itself, rather than simply suppress symptoms with drugs. Growing numbers of folks seek this healing philosophy.
Many Americans flee our shores to more open medical practices abroad. Local officials could take advantage of this fact and the fabulous abundance of local talent. Consider transforming Palm Drive Hospital into a one-of-a kind medical facility in America. It might attract patients from far and wide.
Such a facility would embrace high-grade nutritional therapies and detoxification strategies. For immune/infectious disease support, the hospital could resurrect practices of highly effective oxidation therapies. These were once widespread in America for infection but virtually lost with the advent of magic bullets (antibiotics), now rapidly failing us.
If word got out that an American hospital was offering safe, effective natural therapies, it might divert here the thousands of Californians who flock south of the border seeking the same. Medicine (Palm Drive included) must begin thinking outside the box to save itself from its impending financial implosion.
DR. ROBERT JAY ROWE, Santa Rosa
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Posted in reply to the post by AJL:
My part of my property taxes pay for this hospital (I do not go there) now will they still take this (2 assesments) out of these taxes.
That's right. I and every other property owner in these parts have to pay $310/year plus about another $40/yr in another assessment on my taxes to keep Palm Drive afloat. I just drive by the place, never set foot inside. I already pay $1482/mo for Kaiser so I find it a wee bit curious this hospital is the model of health care dysfunction. What is it that we are not hearing about? If it closes I will demand tax relief.Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Tarotkatee:
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by jbox:
This kind of caper seems to be the last gasp of a dying medical system. We have it on the coast, too. The Redwood Coast Medical Society is evidently not profitable enough for the consortium of physicians who own it, so they, too, have decided to try for another assessment to be added to our taxes. I would never go there unless I had absolutely no choice, and I certainly resent being compelled to pay their expenses for them.
I emphatically agree with the person who suggested making Palm Drive into a progressive center incorporating alternative medicine. What a creative idea!
Hi, this is Elizabeth writing. The Palm Drive folks saved CB's life. If not for them, he would never have pulled through to have his successful surgery. I spent a lot of time there, and saw only caring, dedicated, (and sometimes overworked) people. Our son Eli, who has worked as an RN at hospitals in New York and San Francisco, was really impressed by Palm Drive. It felt human to him, and first-rate.
He's not a nurse now. I have a big hunch that the admin and bureaucratic toxic sludge that drove him to change his profession might have something to do with Palm Drive's problem. It has become the same poisonous thing in education, too -- the administration gets bigger and bigger and takes more and more of the budget, while the teachers are running their asses off to do their jobs, and even are buying simple supplies for their students.
There's got to be a way to keep a work-place for the Palm Drive people, the real people, the ones who gave CB a "graduation gift" when he finished his month of daily antibiotic infusions and prepared to head off for his surgery.