Sister Judith Ann, Keith Steffen, and Haitian Hearts--December 2019

The day after my conversation with the nurse who was spreading rumors, I decided I needed to talk to Sister Judith Ann, President of OSF-Corporate. (She is now Chairperson of OSF HealthCare.) Sister had been a big supporter of the Haitian kids, would eat supper with my mom, and Sister came to the Peoria airport on one occasion to greet the Haitian kids when we got off the plane from Haiti. And Sister had assured me multiple times over the years that OSF would never turn away a Haitian child.

When I arrived at her office at OSF Corporate, Sister appeared nervous.  I sat down across from her and told her that some vicious rumors were circulating. She interrupted me immediately and said, “They aren’t true, Dr. John.” I realized she must have heard the rumors. However, this is not what I wanted to hear from her—I knew they weren’t true. I was in her office because I wanted her to seek the origin.

I told Sister that I had talked to the nurse who was spreading these rumors and told her that the nurse said that they came from a “not low level source” at OSF”. I thought that it was Sister’s responsibility to look into this as OSF’s leader and friend.

I asked Sister to talk with the nurse. Sister immediately said “no”to my request. It didn’t seem that she even thought about her answer. I couldn’t believe she would say “no” so fast. I figured that Sister must have told me no so quickly because she already knew where they were originating. (Sister Judith Ann told me that day that Jim Farrell, Corporate Director of Marketing/Communication, was devastated by the rumors, too. When I talked to Jim, who was a friend of mine too, he denied hearing any. Someone was lying.)

Based on my conversations with Keith Steffen during the preceding three months and what a number of people including my brother told me he was saying about me, I wanted Sister to investigate thoroughly.

However, Sister started saying things like, “We are like squirrels running around in a cage”. I think she felt trapped and was put in a very bad position by her Administrator, Keith Steffen. 

Poor Sister was very agitated and nervous. She seemed terrified. I think she had been told to deny. Just think if she did talk to the nurse and the rumors came from Keith. I think she was terrified of that possibility.

Then, amazingly, Sister told me that if Administration (Keith Steffen) had been responsible for these rumors, then we just need to “reconcile”. Reconciliation involves admitting one’s mistakes…would Keith Steffen and OSF’s attorney Doug Marshall have done that?

I could see that Sister Judith Ann was going to do nothing. I think she felt terrible but that she needed to protect her number one priority which was OSF.

As I left her office, I felt completely abandoned by the OSF Sisters whom I had trusted for three decades. It didn’t appear that they were in control of OSF any longer. Their great legacy in Peoria was being scandalized by the men and women they had hired to administrate their 1.6 billion dollar business. The Sisters were now simply elderly figureheads who scurried around watering flowers and visiting patients in their rooms.

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Denouement and Learning Points–2019

Sister Judith Ann is a good person. But she has been overrun by her own Administration.

Sister Judith Ann told me that she would never turn away a Haitian child for heart surgery at OSF. However, this proved to be false, too. In July 2002, Keith Steffen cut off all funding for Haitian children. And in 2003, Doug Marshall, OSF-SFMC attorney, sent me a certified letter stating that OSF would never accept a Haitian child referred by me for heart surgery. And Sister Judith Ann stayed quiet.

And during the 2000s, OSF did not respond when I contacted them in hopes that they would accept Haitian Hearts patients who had been operated at OSF in the past and needed repeat heart surgery. I did not hear back from OSF and these young patients died.

In 2015, I contacted Sister Judith Ann once again and asked her to remove the OSF ban on my Haitian patients who needed repeat heart surgery. She wrote back and advised me to contact the new OSF-SFMC Administrator. But she did not remove the OSF ban on my Haitian patients. And without her intercession, there was no reason to contact the Administrator.

But Haitian Hearts has continued to work hard even without local support. We have brought over 220 Haitians to the States since 1995–mostly for medical problems and a few for adoption. Haitian kids have been operated from California to New York to Florida. A few kids have been operated in the Cayman Islands and the Dominican Republic. And a pediatric heart team (Haiti Cardiac Alliance) have come to Haiti and operated on a few of our kids right in Haiti.

John A. Carroll, MD

www.haitianhearts.org