Well.
It seems that our county hospital administrator and 60 local physicians have a difference of opinion over what the truth is.
Sixty or so local pediatricians released a letter that you can read here.
The letter was strongly worded and included this statement:
The claim that EPCH (El Paso Children’s Hospital) doctors personally support Mr. Valenti is at best a strategic deception and is more likely plain perjury given that Mr. Valenti was under oath while making this statement.
Perjury
Wow! You have to wonder how the federal bankruptcy judge will react to the situation. Whether our hospital administrator is charged with perjury or not, it is clear that this group of doctors wants nothing to do with him. The other local hospitals have got to be elated over this. If the county hospital does end up running the children’s hospital it does not look like this group of pediatricians will be using the children’s hospital unless they absolutely have to.
The El Paso Times published a balanced article about the controversy. Included in the article was a link to a portion of a sworn deposition that our county hospital administrator gave. Read it here.
The excerpt included a lot of whining and posturing but this jewel is unbelievable:
What we’re trying to do is allow the Children’s to be under the shelter of the district’s wing — envision a bird’s wing — under the safety and security of the district.
I’m trying to imagine what kind of bird our hospital administrator had in mind. I also can’t imagine that our readers think of the administrator as a benevolent force in this situation.
Our county commissioners must take action here.
We should not let them allow this to continue.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
County Commissioners take action? Really? Are we talking about El Paso’s Commissioners? They are the ones who let this sorry mess develop in the first place! Meanwhile, this is the same liar who claimed that there were no problems with any of the 56 employees he laid off a year or so ago, but now says one third of them were disciplinary problems! I am not surprised, but I’m really pissed that this sort of thing still goes on in this town.
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Wow…angry Doctors…Perjury Really?
I am wondering why the Doc’s are not mad at the EPCH board for really BAD fiduciary responsibility for running their Children hospital into Bankruptcy !
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You are so dead set on defending Valenti and UMC at every turn that you continually disregard the facts, including the fact that former UMC board chairman William Hansen sat on the board of EPCH while also on the UMC board.
Valenti’s own bio on the UMC website says that he, too, is a member of the EPCH board. So, is he or was he ever a part of the bad board to which you refer, or is his claim to be an EPCH board member just a case of an inflated bio and ego? I’m sure you’ll blame that factual error on one of the 56 UMC employees who were terminated last year.
http://mcamericas.org/james-valenti
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Dear RC,
One or two board members is not a managing majority…the previous and current EPCH Majority Board ran the EPCH into bankruptcy and they do not negotiate..they have no fault in your eyes?
Regards
H
PS: the only people making money are Lawyers…that is sad use of Healthcare funds
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Unfortunately they smoked Valenti out. Anyway you can justify his dishonesty? They were worth their fees.
.
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If there was no J. Valenti there would be no EPCH !
Be careful of what you pray for….
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Vero is that you (defending your bestest pal)?
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:- ) He must be developing memory problems. He has left his “healthcare isn’t free” mantra out of his last couple of comments.
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Under a “bird’s wing”? More like under a horse’s ass.
“Under the safety and the security of the district…” That’s like the wolves offering to guard the sheep.
OK, so I read the excerpt from Valenti’s deposition. His response to the question starts out with “My board chairman…”. His board. His chairman. That sums up the problems and empire-buidling at UMC.
There’s Jimmy V describing his warmy and fuzzy persona: “….when I was being picked up to come to this meeting, Lou and legal counsel saw me embrace a pediatric specialist and we hugged ….”
He also said the CH pediatricians “openly state that they have supported myself not 100 percent, but 200 percent.” That’s apparently the same kind of math used in the original CH financial proforma developed by Valenti and team.
Valenti should practice up on his deposition and testimony skils. He’s probably going to need them. The revelation this week that UMC apparently lied to the 56 employees about the reason they were being terminated last year and the fact that Valenti is now describing those people as poor performers has exposed UMC to potential lawsuits by those who were fired. Even if UMC were to win, they will have to used our tax dollars to defend against those lawsuits.
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Reality, you hit the issue dead on.
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We can only hope, as the Times hints in its editorial today, that Valenti’s contract is not renewed. Meantime, I still do not really understand why the $120 million bond for the EPCH building assigned ownership to UMC, allowing it to charge EPCH millions in rent every year. I don’t think voters at the time truly understood what was going to happen. The upshot is that UMC now “owns” a building that is paid for by the taxpayers (who will be paying for a very long time) and is trying to get full control of the hospital that operates there.
First, do no harm has hardly been the governing principle here.
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