Beloved Hospital--September 2019
OSF-Saint Francis Medical Center, Peoria
(Photo by John Carroll)
It is easy to criticize Muslim jihadists from my computer in Peoria. And it is easy to tweet something negative about Russia’s Boris Yeltsin from Peoria. However, be aware of what you are doing if you publicly criticize Peoria’s OSF. They are much stronger than we may realize.
In 2003, on a freezing cold and lonely Sunday morning, I picketed OSF-Saint Francis Medical Center. I sure didn’t want to but I knew I had no choice. A few days earlier I had received a certified letter from OSF’s attorney stating that OSF would not accept any more Haitian Hearts patients of mine including Haitian kids who had already been operated at OSF and needed repeat heart surgery. I believed this action by OSF would result in the deaths of Haitian children. This negligence by OSF was in opposition to the core beliefs of the OSF Mission Philosophy and needed to be exposed.
And to be honest, over the past 15 years, I have felt very bad about criticizing a place I held so close to my heart. I was born at OSF as were many family members and I had worked there during four different decades. The hospital meant a lot to me and I couldn’t hardly imagine protesting against the Sisters.
In the early 2000s, I spoke to a well-known local Catholic monsignor about OSF’s new policy banning Haitians. He told me he thought there was “corporate malaise” at OSF. I knew he was being kind and I believed there was much more than just corporate malaise. And I thought the Sisters were very weak and did not control the people below them including their administrators and hospital attorney. And this negligence would result in the deaths of some Haitian Hearts patients who had already been operated at OSF and needed to return to Peoria for repeat surgery.
What I didn’t know in the early 2000s was how well OSF was protected. They MUST have known what they were doing when they banned my Haitian children from further medical care in Peoria.
On September 1, 2019 the New York Times ran an article entitled “That Beloved Hospital? It’s Driving up Health Care Costs”.
The article states that politicians have been targeting the high cost of health care and blaming pharmaceutical companies and insurers who pay their executives millions. However, the politicians leave out hospitals from their criticism. And the Times says that the primary culprit behind runaway medical inflation is America’s hospitals who seem to get a free pass from our national politicians.
The Times:
“So why have politicians on both the left and right let hospitals off scot-free? Because a web of ties binds politicians to the health care system.
“Every senator, virtually every congressman and every mayor of every large city has a powerful hospital system in his or her district. And those hospitals are as politically untouchable as soybean growers in Iowa or oil producers in Texas.”
OSF is the largest employer in Peoria while health care is Peoria’s number one industry. Local politicians want to stay on OSF’s good side to garner OSF’s financial support. Our City Council keeps OSF happy with them and will not criticize Advanced Medical Transport’s (AMT) monopoly of prehospital 911 services. They know AMT is a big moneymaker and are well aware that AMT is OSF’s baby.
In 2003 I trusted the Catholic Ethicist at OSF to do the right thing regarding Haitian kids. However, I should have known for obvious reasons that was not going to happen. Even though OSF’s Mission Philosophy was being trampled on by OSF, the Ethicist needed to collect his paycheck each week and his silence was golden.
Even Bishop Daniel Jenky would not take on OSF over this issue due to their money and influence in Peoria.
The Times article continues:
“Beyond that, hospitals are often beloved by constituents. It’s easy to get voters riled up about a drug maker in Silicon Valley or an insurer in Hartford. It’s much riskier to try to direct their venom at the place where their children were born; that employed their parents as nurses, doctors and orderlies; that sponsored local Little League teams; that was associated with their Catholic Church.”
OSF’s own employees have to be very careful what they say on social media or in opinion pieces written to the Journal Star if they want to keep their jobs. And their health insurance. And their friends.
I know it is true that not everyone believes that Haitian children suffering heart conditions should be operated at OSF. However, I hope that these same people would believe that Haitian children who had surgery at OSF and need repeat heart surgery would not be denied this opportunity. It is very hard for me to find other children’s medical center’s anywhere in the world that want “redos”. It is clearly OSF’s moral and medical responsibility to accept their own patients back for life-saving heart surgery.
What about the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Peoria (UICOMP)? What did they do to advocate for Haitian children suffering from operable heart conditions?
Medical schools serve as one of the first institutions in the formation of doctors. They should be teaching their young students that the social determinants of health are equally as important if not more important than the medical science behind health and sickness.
But UICOMP was silent regarding OSF’s medical negligence which was happening just a few blocks from the medical school. For many many reasons their leaders and physicians were silent and would not take on OSF either. And that is a lost educational opportunity because their young students were denied a rich tutorial on how NOT to care for patients who come from poverty.
Recently, our national news has been replete with stories about pharmaceutical companies and our national opioid epidemic. Pharmaceutical executives are battling lawsuits by blaming drug users. However, Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family have offered to pay 10-12 billion dollars upfront for their role in this epidemic. However, I haven’t seen where Purdue and the Sacklers have apologized for the deaths which have occurred due to opioids.
Big organizations such as OSF (and Purdue) don’t admit they are wrong. They don’t say they are sorry. OSF’S administrators and legal team did not hear Jackson Jean-Baptiste’s sister Nadia scream when I told her Jackson had died. (Jackson was just one Haitian Hearts patient who died after being refused repeat care at OSF.) OSF has not apologized to Jackson’s family in Haiti.
In 2003 I had to “go public” about OSF’s policy directed against Haitian kids. I think it was good that I did NOT realize how protected OSF would be in Peoria. There HAS been a personal price to pay…but I didn’t pay with my life as have some of my Haitian kids.
I think we need to realize that it is not inconceivable that if OSF cut off poor Haitian kids from medical care, they could do the same to our own poor in Peoria. My ultimate goal is for OSF to never refuse medical care for someone in need.
John A. Carroll, MD
www.haitianhearts.org
5 thoughts on “Beloved Hospital”
says:
October 30, 2019 at 6:39 am Edit
Great article.
ReplyScotty
says:
October 30, 2019 at 11:16 pm Edit
Hospitals are often beloved by constituents.
https://starjackio.online/
Replyrobert d vogel
says:
November 1, 2019 at 3:54 pm Edit
Well written and gutsy about the decline in values moral beliefs at OSF. The University Of Illinois College of Medicine in Peoria was mentioned ; leading up the big secret OSF, Unity Pt or any ” Teaching Hospital ” does not want the general public to know, and that anyone who has been through the program already knows:: Patients are not the number one priority.
The #1 is to produce new physicians as quickly and efficiently as possible , by any and all means; and to always turn a profit. No matter what.
A fellow physicians ” Opinion ” ; most especially those in your network and above all to residents , is always to be agreed with. The patient’s life and well being are of secondary concern.
Errors and mistakes, even the GROSS ones caused by not following generally medical procedures made by yourself , fellow physicians and the institution are NEVER to be reported.
The most important thing is to protect the intuitions of Medicine, and the profession of yourself and fellow physicians.
If you John Carroll MD wanted to pay the people of Peoria , OSF back, come to the table with clean hands and report on this. Until then don’t preach morals.
I am disabled and on Medicare. I am the one who suffers from all the learning errors. I am not a lab rat and my value as a Human being is not to be diminished. I am more than a stepping stone in some Foreign born students medical career or natives, all though there are more of the former.
Show some balls and address this most serious issue Patients care should be first and not last. This is meant for all physicians, quit preaching morals and values , when you by tacit approval allow people to suffer and die to advance yourselves. This is what the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele did for the greater good of medicine
Replysays:
Mr. Vogel,
Specifically, what do you want me to do?
john
Reply
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