The board of managers of our county hospital has some explaining to do.
They recently gave a six digit bonus to their chief executive officer.
The county hospital experienced some significant events last year. The readers should be able to remember more but these are the ones I can recall:
- They had to lay off more than 50 employees because of financial difficulties
- They reported that the children’s hospital deal that the county hospital CEO heavily promoted has left the hospital holding the bag on 71 million dollars worth of debt
- They had to take a payday loan, borrowing against next year’s property taxes to make it through the year
- Our county commissioners gave the hospital authority to issue 151 million dollars of bonds
- to remodel floors of the hospital that have not been maintained even though we are told that the hospital operates at a profit
- to build new outpatient clinics, but then just a few weeks later the CEO said that the money will have to be repurposed, whatever that means
- They had to pay 1.1 million dollars to a woman that was subjected to outrageous treatment just because a federal employee told the doctors and hospital to do it. From The Texas Tribune: Aside from the vaginal probe and CT scan, the woman also underwent a forced observed bowel movement, a rectal exam and an X-ray. She was eventually released six hours later then billed $5,000 because she refused to sign a consent-to-search statement.
They gave him a bonus? In many companies he would have been fired before they even got to this bonus evaluation.
Now one of county commissioners has called for his board member’s resignation. At least someone has his priorities straight.
This board is appointed by our county commissioners. We need some changes.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Write to your commisioner and Judge Escobar and tell them that you are sick of the back room maneuvers and want transparency regarding UMC and CH. I did. The MCA is too important to the future of this community to be left to the mercy of Valenti’s ego and he has shown that he can’t get along with doctors and is contemptuous of the public’s right to know how their money is being spent. Really, the whole UMC board is following the EPISD script to give us another failed El Paso institution.
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I wrote to Escobar at the time the lawsuit was filed on behalf of Jane Doe and got a “oh we must reserve judgment” response. I will NEVER allow myself to be taken to a hospital whose management had to be hit with a million-dollar lawsuit in order to understand that the kind of physical assault on this woman was not medical treatment, an outrage multiplied by the cynical tactic of billing her when she refused “consent.” Is there any evidence that any of those responsible for this behavior have been disciplined? Are the doctors who willingly participated still working in the ER???
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That incident alone should have nixed the bonus of anyone in UMC’s management. It still sickens me to think it could happen here in the USA. Let’s hope our county board can find a way to nudge the UMC board toward understanding their roles as custodians of a billion-dollar enterprise that is too important to be left to amateurs.
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In an effort to justify his acceptance of a bonus, Valenti told the El Paso Times that he is “not bashful about my performance”.
Bashful, no. Arrogant, yes.
Bashful, no. Delusional, yes.
In speaking about the layoffs of 56 workers earlier this year, Valenti said last week, “It’s a value judgment and that’s the value judgment that I recommended to the board, that was accepted by the board and was recommended by my management team and myself.”
So, what Valenti is basically saying is that he and a select few deserved those $300,000 in bonuses more than several people deserved to keep their jobs. His “value” judgment was that on top of his $460,000 base salary, he and his highly paid executives needed those bonuses money more than others needed their jobs.
Well, here’s my value judgment: The blatant greed and lack of compassion demonstrated by Valenti is disgusting.This is a matter of corruption; maybe not financial corruption, but definitely moral corruption. UMC may yet be financially bankrupted, but based on the balance sheet of its recent actions, it is already ethically and morally bankrupt.
The unapologetic, lock-step decisions of the board make me think the UMC situation is even worse than we know.
The board member must be unfamiliar with a core medical philosophy: primum non nocere.
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An investigation into UMC,CH anf the Board is needed to included a third party audit.
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