Haitian Hearts Meeting with Bishop Daniel Jenky–February 5, 2003--December 2019

 

EB 1592--Haitian Hearts Meeting with Bishop Daniel Jenky–February 5, 2003--December 2019

John Carroll, 2001

While I was in Haiti in January 2003, the Catholic Diocese of Peoria organized a new Haitian Hearts committee. Monsignor Rohlfs and Patricia Gibson were the individuals most involved in organizing this. Haitian Hearts had been put on suspension by OSF after I picketed the hospital before leaving for Haiti. OSF had placed a ban on Haitian children who needed heart surgery in December.

The new committee which was put together by the Diocese and OSF was filled with OSF Corporate people, OSF Administrators, Bishop Jenky, Monsignor Rohlfs, Patricia Gibson, and various other individuals. Most knew absolutely nothing about how Haitian Hearts worked. And they knew very little about Haiti. The OSF and Diocesan people were on the committee solely for their ability to tow the OSF party line–whatever that was determined to be.

My brother Tom and his wife Diane were there and Haitian Hearts coordinator Anne Wagenbach was invited, also. Anne was an RN at OSF and had worked in Haiti, transported kids to Illinois, took care of some kids in her home, followed the kids in the hospital after surgery, and helped take the kids back to Haiti after their recovery from heart surgery.  Keith Steffen, OSF’s CEO, had threatened to sue Anne two years earlier when she circulated a petition in hopes of saving my job as Steffen was preparing to fire me.

At the beginning of the meeting, Bishop Jenky and Monsignor Rohlfs mentioned a couple of times that the “Diocese does not want egg on its face” and they mentioned Caterpillar. The Bishop also mentioned the Diocesan Capital Campaign which is the fundraising campaign for the Catholic Diocese. How these statements related to Haitian kids with congenital heart defects or rheumatic heart disease was confusing.

During the meeting, I was able to speak for about five minutes and told the group what OSF had meant to the Carroll family over the past 100 years.  I told them that many of my family members had been born at OSF and I sited a family medical miracle that had occurred at OSF in the late 1800s and was passed down over the generations.  When I mentioned the miracle, Monsignor Rohlfs cut me off.

I asked Sister Judith Ann, who was seated right next to me, if she thought Haitian kids were safe at OSF. I believed that Haitian kids were not being operated in a timely fashion at OSF during the previous year. Sister did not answer and said nothing during the meeting. Monsignor Rohlfs cut me off pretty quickly at that point– my time was up.

Rohlfs assigned jobs to everyone in the room except Anne Wagenbach. Anne was seated next to Monsignor Rohlfs and she asked him how much the Diocese was going to donate to CHOI for Haitian Hearts. Rohlfs replied “nothing”. We were all getting a crash course in how the leaders of the Catholic Diocese of Peoria actually lead.

As the meeting was finishing up, my brother Tom asked Bishop Jenky if I could return to Haiti and bring back a few kids for surgery at OSF. Bishop Jenky said he did not believe that was a good idea and gave no explanation.

Bishop Jenky spent 45 minutes with us during the 60-minute meeting and that was the last we ever saw of him as the new “director” of Haitian Hearts.

Patricia Gibson assured us that the next meeting would be in a few weeks. Unfortunately, the next meeting did not occur until July 16, 2003, and at that meeting, the Diocese withdrew all support from Haitian Hearts and the Haitian children who needed heart surgery in Peoria.

Denouement and Learning Points–2019

1. This meeting in February 2002 was worthless.

2. Bishop Jenky feared OSF…I was to find out more about this quite soon at a meeting with him in the Chancery.

3. Bishop Jenky could have raised money for Haitian Hearts and Haitian children needing heart surgery at OSF and he could have asked other pediatric heart hospitals across the country to help out with costs. As Bishop of the large Diocese of Peoria, Bishop Jenky had a lot of political clout. He understands how hospitals “work” in the USA. Bishop Jenky wasted an opportunity to save many young Haitian lives by following Catholic social justice teachings.