Comments keep coming. One writes to me that www.ashvegas.com has been spam-blocked on Mission Hospitals computers. If that’s true, just pull out the ol’ Blackberry or whatever. Keep ’em coming:
As a Mission employee for a number of years and an RN for over 30 years in various hospital settings, I have never seen anything like what is going on in the Mission system recently…we are dedicated, hard working employees trying to live by the Mission MERIT values of Mercy, Excellence, Respect, Integrity and Trust…but we do not see these values in our leadership.
There is no transparency or honesty…nurses with the most experience are being “let go” with no real explanation, so that less costly new nurses can take their place. Or no one is hired and the rest of us just work harder. We are not told what the true agenda is, as there is no communication that we can trust..if we speak up about any of the treatment we are currently receiving, our jobs are definately on the line..we do not feel valued or respected by “the system.”
Fortunately, we take great pride in our profession and taking care of our patients, but many of us are truly fed up with the feeling that we work for an uncaring machine..and since Mission is the Big Dog in town and Asheville’s major employer, we feel stuck with no place else to go. The physicians are correct. Something is definately very rotten at the top of the management food chain. Employee morale is rock bottom.
15 Comments
In all of my years at Mission I have never seen morale so low. There are very few people employed at Mission these days who have anything positive to say about the administration. Those who do have something positive to say have not been around long enough to "see how things work", and haven’t been intimidated into fearing the loss of their job if they speak up.
Unfortunately, JD brought in other administrative leaders who have his mindset. People who will agree with him and his idea of how things should be. They are all "yes" people with no experience in our community, knowing no history about our hospital or the excellent tradition that was built prior to their arrival.
What once was great is a shadow of what used to be. Mission is not the place it once was. JD and his administrative colleagues, as well public relations staff have "spun" this issue to make it sound like the changes taking place were for the sake of the community and to save health care dollars. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Now Mission is top heavy with high paid VPs who don’t acknowledge or appreciate the contributions of staff. JD’s salary went up tremendously during his short time at Mission, while employees "in the trenches" were told there was no money for increases in pay.
Mission employees have been told by bosses to "keep quiet" about administration and told not to participate in internet "blogs". And because we have seen so many extraordinary people "let go", most people have no faith that our jobs will be preserved if we do try to speak out.
We are hopeful with the resignation of JD that things might *begin* to change, but honestly, there are a lot of other folks in top adminstration who (if they remain at Mission) will likely impede future growth.
For the first time in a very long time, the employees at Mission see a glimmer of hope, but it will take more than JD’s resignation to repair the relationships and build back the trust that have been lost. We still don’t trust the other VPs. We are still fearful of losing our jobs.
I have heard some folks outside of Mission (and those in PR for Mission) say that employees and doctors are upset because they don’t want change. This just isn’t true. I think that we all understand that in our changing healthcare environment we must adjust to the times. What we don’t agree with is how the changes have been put into place (without the input of those who have built the foundation of our great history, without the input of physicians who serve our community…).
So many of us are sorrowful for the loss of what once was… the great VPs that left after the new administration came in. Tim Johnson, David Spillers, Jim Miller — all men that so many Mission employees love and appreciate. All of them left Mission and received very little acknowledgement for their tremendous contributions to our hospital and to our community. These were extraordinary people who worked hard and had compassion for patients and staff. Under their leadership our hospital flourished. The employees of Mission recognize their efforts and miss their presence.
Most recently, Dr. Mike Buechler’s resignation from the trauma service was a devastating loss. We love him dearly and are so proud of the trauma program that he built… it is one of the reasons I was so proud to work at Mission. I will never understand how administration can justify Dr. Buechler’s loss. Of course, they say that "everyone is replaceable" (a fact shared with our department by an HR representative recently). True, you can get a body to fill the space, but it will never be the same. We (Mission) will never be the same.
Our only hope is that the truth will continue to come out.
Thanks Ashvegas for providing a forum for Mission employees to share our thoughts and perspectives. We appreciate you (:
This has been going on for at least three years. Many personal vendettas have been carried out against long term employees. Some were not nurses. The folks who are not nurses are treated even worse. HR at Mission is a joke.
The Good Guys have lost!!
The Blue Ribbon Commission Report is out and lots of scathing information is in it however something is dirty and wrong here, because the word is that NOTHING is going to happen to the very people cited in this report.
What do they have on the board? That is the only answer here!
When 150 doctors agree that this administration is rotten and no one is asked to leave then what do we have here. You have all read the many posts here. Does it sound right to you?
The board may think it is doing the right thing to try to cover this up as much as possible but somehow, somewhere this report will surface and be made public and then what?? Good luck living in Asheville with our hospital going to Hell in a handbasket so to speak. Let the mass exodus of great medical people begin!!
A vendor to Mission commented on how JD looked at her like she wasn’t worth speaking to. Welcome to Mission! Unless you are from Michigan or have power and prestige in the community don’t expect the honor.
I was concerned about the culture differences when Mission bought out Saint Joesph’s, and I came to work here at Mission; that was a difference, but nothing like the differences since J.D.and B.A. and ….came here. Our common culture of mercy and care and patient care are threatened by this atmosphere of arrogance and bullyness. I have a difficult time trying to reconcile our stated values with our leadership’s actions. How do we fire our board? Any ideas? Maybe some of the new ones should be kept, like the fact finder ,former board member of the Mayo Clinic, or Tim Johnson – one of the first to tell J.D. To take a hike. Now he really exemplified our values..not this joke we have now.
So, where did Damore come from? What was the morale of the hospital system he left ? Why didn’t Mission’s Board realize what they were getting when they hired him ? Or, more importantly, were they incompetent that they didn’t vet him better, or guilty that this was their goal all along? Sounds like a great opportunity for a budding investigative journalist to get involved !
Not only did they force out a great leader, Jim Miller, they replaced him with a VP who has been named on here already…..she has tons of "education", absolutely NO clinical experience, and has NO idea what honesty, trust, and leadership are truly about!! No wonder JD and Brian hired her…..total control. Right Boss? Right Boss!
As employees we need to speak out and support our Doctors. In all my years at Mission, we have never had such a dictator as Joe Damore. Let’s send him back to whence he came and all his VPs with him! The last of the good guys are gone with Jim Miller’s departure last month. I fear not competition from Carolinas Medical but eventual dominance!
Great comments from "Alittlehonestyplz" but the board needs to investigate Frank Ford, and Kristi Sink as well! You will be amazed at the way they have treated their direct reports and the lies they have told to the front line staff and physicians in an attempt to make themselves look good. Thank goodness the staff and physicians see through this hypocrisy and don’t trust either one of them. These two fell right off the JD tree and hit every hypocritical, lying branch on the way down!
I am so ashamed that we by our silence have allowed this culture of intimidation and ruthlessness to run our hospital by such methods. We have been quiet and accepting of the many VPs, while cutting budgets and losing nurses. We say nothing while the least able among us are paid so far below a living wage but we can hire numerous mezzi personnel. Shame on all of us…especially our board of directors…Your predessors would turn over in their graves…no ….they would never have allowed it to have gotten this far. The best you can do now is to try to repair our damaged reputation and culture. It has been a long time since I have heard of MERIT from anyone above a Director. It would be difficult to speak about something that you do not practice. Please do not stop any investigation at Mr. Damore’s desk, just continue through Mr. Aston’s and Ms. Roloff’s and others….You will be mortified, if you care to look closely.
It seems to have taken the resignation of Dr. Mike Beuchler to cause this long-simmering controversy to finally boil over. And there’s a tragic story leading to that tortured, last-resort decision. The treatment of the Trauma Surgery Dept. is a microcosm of the entire way administration has treated the employed physicians — a combination of incompetence and arrogance. MB is one of the least arrogant, most humble and self-effacing doc you will ever meet. Here’s a doc whose life work has been to improve patient outcomes. He built the trauma service into one of the best in the country and the second or third busiest in the state. Where other trauma centers with their volume would have 8 or more docs, a host of PAs, and several levels of residents, Mission had to do with 5 docs and 2 PAs. That meant docs working 28-day shifts, half days / half nights. That meant absolutely nothing to Administration. MB pleaded and pleaded for additional help for the service, but was repeatedly rebuffed. Administration just didn’t see where the "numbers justified it." This was 100% inconsistent with the findings of the administration-hired consulants who came in to assess the hospital docs in preparation for contract negotiations and establishment of the governance structure (another story entirely). MB and other trauma docs were warned to stop complaining about the need for additional help and the risk to patient care or they would be fired. They were warned that if they spoke to the Board they would be fired. MB was also told they could hire another doc for the service, but only if he quit. At one point, a potential candidate (board-certified) came in and interviewed for a job and was told by Administration something like "Why should we pay to hire a board-certified doc like you when we can get a cheaper general surgeon right out of residency?" This is our emergency department! Does Mission want to provide the best-quality care for people with an emergency in the region, or do they want a MASH unit that provides the bare minimum and have patients choppered to Charlotte, where the delay in treatment can mean the difference between life and death? One final point: Throughout all this, Administration never once met with the trauma group as a whole, insisting on individual meetings where they shamefully, and not very discretely, tried to turn some of the docs against the others. They would say one thing to one doc, then deny saying it to the other docs. This is our management team.
It is true that JD has blocked this website at the hospital. He has also begun spin control to the middle management through the internal email system. He again mentioned in his spin mail that the hospital does not address anonymous letters or concerns. Horse pucky! The Dr.Sig anonymous BS that every middle manager has been forced to tolerate has been a favorite toy of Mr. Damore and his lacky Maria Roloff. As long as the nazi’s were in control of the information, anonymous or not, they were ecstatic. Control is JD’s middle name. The reason the board didn’t act fast enough is because JD was effective through the use of not one, not two, but three personal assistants in reading EVERY thing that was sent to the board. So if any physician or employee tried to speak out it was placed in "file 13" by JD! I hope that employees will continue to keep writing and getting the facts out there bit by bit. It is important for all of us who have had to endure this regime to speak out about all of the times that we have been harassed, threatened, and intimidated.
Murphy, good point.
Putting, excellent – as you should.
J.
This same email from above could probably describe the situation at many employers in WNC: not just Mission Hospitals.
More and more, temporary workers are "filling" spots left by departing long-term employees, and job responsibilities are being "reshuffled" with no increase in pay for the additional work load.
Not to mention salaries here that lag behind national averages.
It seems this is a reality that is finally hitting home, in Asheville.
For the record, Mission’s computers block all blogs. When we’re at work we’re taking care of VERY SICK PATIENTS.