Should we now expect to hear that our school buses will not pick up kids next year because the drivers are not properly certified?
Or that our airport cannot accept planes that want to land because we are not keeping our runways clean?
Maybe our ambulances won’t run because they forgot how to tie bandages.
According to the Times our county hospital administrators are scrambling to avoid losing the hospital’s certification. They have a little less than three weeks to fix their problems.
Surprise?
Back in December we wrote More problems at the county hospital and explained that our hospital had been given an “F” rating by the folks at Medicare and that payments to the hospital would be reduced as a result.
One of the problems was “preventable errors”. Another was “hospital acquired conditions”.
Think infection.
Now the Joint Commission (the accrediting agency) has come to the hospital and as what must have been an absolute surprise to everyone paid particular attention to the sterilization process.
Were we prepared? According to the Times our hospital administrator said: “”Our employees in that area are entry-level type of employees. We’re going to look into raising the statute of that department, management and of the associates.”
I don’t know whether the Times reporter slipped up or if the official actually said “statute”. They probably meant “stature” but more importantly the hospital did not do anything about the problem when it was pointed out to them in December.
Failure costs money
Now specialists are being flown in and incredibly the hospital has stopped performing surgeries unless they are necessary. Even then the patients are going to be given the option of going to another hospital (presumably at our cost).
As for elective surgeries, you might ask if the county hospital should be performing them at all. If we find that the hospital makes a profit on them and needs them to help balance the budget then we have another problem. That money is being lost while the hospital finally pays attention to what they were penalized for back in December.
Where are our county commissioners?
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Could these issues be part of the, “I have to be here fro 9 to 5 and I get paid every other Friday, and I don’t really care about the quality of my work” syndrome? It seems this attitude is quite prevalent everywhere you go whether it be a retail store, a restaurant or a hospital. Whatever happened to what we used to call a work ethic?
We do, indeed, deserve better.
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Why would the hospital be assigning “entry level” employees to such a vital area? When I trained at local hospitals (including the old R. E. Thomason General Hospital) way back in the 1970’s they had well trained people performing this kind of work. For the Administrator to make this claim now reflects very poorly on him and his entire administration.
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This UMC failure in the middle of its attack on Children’s Hospital is yet another indication that CH holds the higher moral ground in its dispute with UMC. Team Valenti wants to control CH when they are not even managing their own shop properly.
If so much money wasn’t being paid to Valenti and his chosen few, perhaps UMC could afford more than “entry level” employees in one of its most mission critical departments.
I suspect CH’s allegations that UMC committed fraud are spot on. If ever there was ever an El Paso public entity that needed to be investigated by the Feds, it is UMC.
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Yep do not be surprised when UMC goes to CCC for more money this year. UMC has it’s own financial problems outside of CH but you are not being told this fact. Rest assure that if Million Dollar Man Valenti , Vero and members of the CCC can keep this quit they will until the very last minute. Please if anyone know what private hospital could survive if such non-sense was taking place in their organization, how would it’s CEO remain in their job and get a big bonus? Any one!
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And the best part is that EP Children’s Hospital is helping UMC with sterilization work, despite the continuing battle with UMC over its charges.
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Yep. Yet, Queen Escobar and her court continue to side with Valenti and want to see Children’s Hospital lose out to UMC. Their faux outrage over the UMC bonuses last year was short-lived. At UMC, they are all about the money … the money they needed to make from allegedly over-charging CH in order to cover up UMC’s own financial problems. Oh, and they need that money to pay big bucks to a CEO, who thinks sterilization is best left to entry level (minimum wage) employees, who they probably treat like janitors or dishwashers.
Contract or not, Valenti should be fired after this latest certification problem, which is probably costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees being paid to multiple outside experts to fix UMC’s own incompetence. My guess is that someone else like a lowly department manager or supervisor will be the one fired.
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