Paul Kramer--Executive Director of Children's Hospital of Illinois
My Comments in 2021--
1. The following is what was happening in the late 90s and early 2000s in Peoria. It is still very relevant twenty years later when following the money frequently gives the answer.
2. Paul Kramer told me that Haitian Hearts was becoming too competitive for CHOI. Haitian Hearts was raising a lot of money that was earmarked for Haitian kids' medical care. However, Paul wanted the money for bricks and mortar for the new Children's Hospital. (In the mid 2000s, OSF built a new 275 million dollar Children's Hospital.) Paul was probably getting a lot of pushback from Keith Steffen about Haitian Hearts since Keith was going to pull all OSF financial support for Haitian Hearts kids in July 2002.
Paul Kramer--Executive Director Children's Hospital of Illinois--2003
Paul Kramer is Executive Director of Children’s Hospital of Illinois (CHOI). I carried on many of the discussions regarding Haitian Hearts with Paul.
Haitian Hearts was a small group of friends who sat around our kitchen table and planned ways to raise money for CHOI to help pay for the Haitian kids we brought to Peoria for heart surgery at OSF-CHOI. We had no overhead and all funds we raised went directly to CHOI. We paid for the Haitian kids passports, visas, airline tickets, food, medications out of our own back pockets. On occasion, we even paid for their surgery at Children's Hospital of Illinois from our own back pocket.
As the years went by, we brought many Haitian kids to Peoria who needed heart surgery. And over the course of seven years, we raised over 1.1 million dollars--all of it going to Children's Hospital. The doctors at OSF never charged Haitian Hearts for their services.
During a meeting with Paul in his office in 2000, Paul said to me “Haitian Hearts is becoming too competitive for CHOI.” He meant that we were raising so much money that was earmarked for Haitian kids' surgery at CHOI. I think that he was nervous that people were contributing money for CHOI/Haitian Hearts and not for mortar and bricks for a new Children's Hospital. Plus, Paul would have been getting pushback from Keith Steffen who wanted to end the Haitian Hearts program in Peoria. (OSF went on to build a new Children's Hospital for 275 million dollars in the mid 2000s.)
So OSF/CHOI needed to do something.
We found out that Caterpillar Foundation was donating $10,000 per year to CHOI for Haitian Hearts. However, we noticed that on April 1, 2001, Caterpillar only donated $500 to Haitian Hearts. Where had the other $9,500 gone? (I called Caterpillar Foundation and asked them if they donated 10,000 dollars in 2001 to Haitian Hearts, and they confirmed that they did.)
When CHOI hired Linda Arnold in the late 90s to be Director of CHOI Foundation she brought me a letter to sign that said that Haitian Hearts had donated $300,000 to CHOI. (I knew we had donated at least $600,000 to CHOI over the years. ) I told Linda that the amount was wrong, so she changed it to $400,000. I refused to sign that letter as well, telling her the amount was at least $600,000. She left the room and changed the letter yet again to $600,000. I signed this letter. My faith in the "good faith" of CHOI Foundation was falling quickly. The best I could say, was that their “bookkeeping” was bad.
Haitian Hearts never received itemized bills for our Haitian kids. CHOI just told us what they “cost”. So to check this out, an OSF nurse reviewed 6 charts of Haitian kids bills, and found that we had been charged $40,000 too much. (Example: Heart valves that were donated by the companies that make them for the Haitian surgeries were charged to my Haitian kids.) When we showed Kramer the errors, he did give Haitian Hearts credit for these OSF financial errors. I wondered how many more mistakes there were that we would never know about. This was so important to know, because it could mean that we were leaving kids in Haiti with bad hearts who needed heart surgery because of poor bookkeeping at OSF.
OSF also purchased a $21,000 sonogram probe with Haitian Heats money by mistake, and apparently returned the money to the Haitian Hearts account within CHOI.
A physician friend of mine donated overtime hours he had worked to CHOI-Haitian Hearts. His donations over the years did not show up on the computer at CHOI Foundation as going towards medical care for Haitian kids. I tried to track down his donations for two years at OSF-CHOI, but was unable to. Haitian Hearts was never credited with his generous donations. (He was afraid to look for the money himself for fear of repercussions against him.)
After I was fired on December 18, 2001 Paul Kramer constructed a letter to the financial supporters of CHOI. However, he would not sign the letter. It was signed by the wife of one of the CHOI pediatric cardiologists who took care of my Haitian kids over the years. The letter stated, that despite my “leaving OSF, the future of the Haitian Hearts program is bright and that the commitment of the Sisters and much of the central Illinois community is strong. This program will continue.” The idea, of course, was to encourage these donors to continue to send their money to Children's Hospital. (I was pretty sure that OSF was going to stop their support of Haitian kids coming to OSF, I just didn’t know when. Paul Kramer was too smart to sign the letter, probably because he knew that Keith Steffen was going to stop Haitian Hearts kids from coming to Peoria's OSF. (Sources close to Steffen within the medical center had told me, prior to my firing, that Steffen was going to cut OSF’s support of Haitian Hearts.)
On January 3, 2002, OSF spokesperson Chris Lofgren confidently stated in the Peoria Journal Star, “John’s leaving (St. Francis) really doesn’t change Haitian Hearts at all. However, I was quoted as saying, “Haitian Hearts was held over my head by Keith Steffen. The implication was, Haitian Hearts would survive if I survived (at St. Francis). ”
During the Spring of 2002, Jim Holmes, a Haitian Hearts supporter and contractor, approached CHOI and Paul Kramer and told them we wanted to build a house in East Peoria and then sell the house with the proceeds going to Children's Hospital for the care of Haitian children. For some reason, Paul tried to talk Jim out of this idea, but Jim built the house anyway. The house sold for 177,000 dollars
After the house sold, Kramer talked to Jim and begged him for this money. Kramer was quite insistent on getting this money from the project he discouraged from the beginning. Jim told him that the check would be sent when I gave the ok. Kramer told Jim, “Haitian Hearts does not exist and it wasn’t important for me to give the “OK”. (Haitian Hearts authorized that this money go to CHOI in early December, 2002.)
OSF pulled all financial support for the Haitian kids on July 12, 2002. Chris Lofrgen’s statements to the media had been misleading in January and the letter written by Paul Kramer had misled the public. (Lofgren told me that he was intimately involved in the discussions with administration regarding my termination, so I don’t think the July news was a surprise to Lofgren.)
In the fall, 2002, a Rotary Club North official, Lyn Banta, called me one afternoon at home. He told me that Linda Arnold at OSF Foundation had just called him and demanded RCN turn over any funds they had collected for Haitian Hearts for transportation, food, medication, for the Haitian kids. This amounted to $12,500. This fund was designed for people like the small group of us who sat around my kitchen table and paid for these expenses out of our pockets. Now, OSF-CHOI Foundation was attempting to get these funds. Paul Kramer told a Haitian Hearts supporter that he had asked Arnold to make this call to Mr. Banta. Paul was part of the original conversations with Lyn Banta when this independent fund was started by RCN, and Paul knew that money was not to go inside of CHOI for CHOI’s expenses. Mr. Banta refused to turn over the funds to Arnold, even though she was “adamant” that he give them up. Mr. Banta told me that day, “John, you would never have seen these funds, if I had given them to CHOI- Foundation."
So, at the end of 2002, Haitian Hearts had raised and donated $445,000 to CHOI for their work with the Haitian kids. This totalled at least $1.1 million raised by Haitian hearts in 7 years, all of it going to CHOI. Multiple attempts were made to discourage us from raising funds for these kids by Kramer, and Arnold had tried to tap into funds that were not to go to CHOI (Rotary Club North funds). And true to what I was told, OSF-administration cut any funding for Haitian Hearts in July, 2002 which was opposite to what OSF was telling the media six months earlier in January.
Then, to top off the year, Paul Kramer called the American Consulate in Port-au-Prince, Haiti after he received the Haitian House check in December, and asked the Consulate not to grant any more visas for my kids who needed to travel to OSF-CHOI for surgery. When the Consulate officials were telling me this in Haiti, a young lady, Bisolo, who was a Consulate official, began to hyperventilate and had to sit down. She knew what OSF-CHOI’s demand would mean for the Haitian kids in Haiti that would now not be able to leave Haiti.
In 2003, even worse things would happen.
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Below is a letter from Gift of Life, a project of Rotary Club in New York:
September 10, 2003
Dr. John Carroll
2727 Heading Avenue
Peoria, Illinois 61604
Dear John,
I am simply ashamed I cannot find the proper words to address someone as awesome as you are. It is with great pleasure coupled with humility that I made your acquaintance.
Your dedication, your sense of justice, your demeanor undoubtedly put one at ease. I remember when I first met you in the courtyard of Susie Karbacher's residence, I realized your devotion and your savoir-faire in a split second. Moreover, due to your caring and compassion, I felt that I had already known you or met you as I immediately felt the sense of serenity that permeates through you.
Well John, on behalf of Haiti and its people and more importantly, on behalf of all these impoverished, sick children, I offer my thanks and gratitude to you for your mercy, love, charity, kindness and unselfish care.
One day John, HaIti will get back on its feet and it will only become self¬sufficient due to individuals like you who have a sixth sense and who have cared for its downtrodden as you knew that snmething positive will come out of all your devotion.
May God keep bestowing His blessings on you and keep you under His wings always.
Bepty Antoine-Lauren,
Haitian Gift of Life, Inc.
Gift of Life International Honorees
Harriet Hodges 1983 • Nancy Reagan 1984 • William E. Skelton 1985 • Jerry Lewis 1986. Danny Thomas 1987. Sally Struthers 1988 Royce Abbey 1989 • Alan King 1990 • Elliott Gould 1991 • Gavin Macleod and Chad Everett 1992 • Dr. Frank Field and Storm Field 1993 Steve Guttenberg 1994. Tony Randall 1995 • Jack Klugman 1996 • Morgan Fairchild 1997. Connie Stevens 1998. Rod Steiger 1999 Eric Close 2000 • Barbara Sinatra 2001 • Congressman Gary Ackerman 2002 • Pat LaFontaine 2003
Gift of Lite, Inc. is a nonprofit, tax exempt corporation administered by participating Rotarians of
District 7250 for the purpose of providing open-heart surgery to needy children throughout the world.
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