Re: Hospital receives LOI from a fourth suitor, Free Lance 2/2/24
A jigsaw puzzle can be challenging and satisfying. Different smooth or angular shapes can take a great deal of thought while examining some pieces with rounded peninsulas while contemplating other pieces with rounded bays and also looking for tiny snatches of color to fit with other pieces of similar color.
We might think of our hospital as being in pieces and hoping the hospital board can put the puzzle back together or that voters need to select a whole new board dedicated to putting the pieces back together again.
Maybe we need new pieces that will fit properly. New pieces would be a new group of people wanting to serve on the board like a current community group of volunteers who meet weekly educating themselves with speakers like other CEOs and Registrar of Voters, Francisco Diaz. But a puzzling piece may not seem to fit. This wobbly too big piece could be the new CEO, previously a board member and appointed by the board.
The large pieces of the puzzle—namely the lab, the x-ray, the pharmacy, the medical/surgical floor, obstetrics, ER, surgery and outpatient surgery—are the heartbeat of the hospital because this is where nurses and doctors work to make patients healthy.
Other big pieces also need to fit in order to make the whole picture complete. These would be the business offices and the dietician/cafeteria where everyone needs good healthy food.
The job of the hospital board seems to be to fit all these pieces together to form a beautiful picture where patients receive good care like a pleasing painting would appear where colors range and blend, providing a spectacular vision.
A lost piece of puzzle has a question mark. The lost question on this piece asks, “Before the claim of bankruptcy the CEO searched for a hospital partner but found nothing, while after the bankruptcy claim four offers of partnership are made; why now and not before? What made the difference and what are the offers?”
The current CEO must answer these questions rather than get a vote of confidence masked as a high salary raise in a very difficult and chaotic situation awakening sleepy voters.
Mary Zanger
Hollister
