HJAR Nov/Dec 2022

VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE 22 NOV / DEC 2022 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS  “Any professional’s worst nightmare is that of working in an environment where there is fear instead of trust, where there is apathy instead of empathy and where there is contempt instead of concern for the employees’ needs,” Gilliam told the News- Times. “Looking toward the future now, my clients will continue to work with senior level management of CHS as well as new local administrators to fulfill the mission of giving the very best of compassionate patient care at MCSA.” But the issue with the hospital’s SCP con- tract remained. Under new management On Aug. 28, MCSA announced that Dwayne Blaylock, a longtime hospital executive at CHS facilities, would serve as interim CEO. Street’s last day would be Sept. 3. On Sept. 1, Street told MCSA staff that the hospital had selected Emergency Staff- ing Solutions (ESS)/Hospital Care Consul- tants (HCC) as its new vendor for hospital- ist and ER physician services. The contract would start Nov. 9. MCSAdoctors employed through SCPHealth could “meet with ESS/ HCC to learnmore about their staffing plans and positions available,”Street’s email said. Gilliam said the hospital’s decision to change staffing vendors over physicians’ objections followed the same patterns that led to the medical staff’s votes of no confi- dence over the summer. “My clients know of no complaints or problems with SCP staffing and believe that other (if not all) contracts between many CHS hospitals and SCP remain intact,” Gil- liam told the El Dorado News-Times . Ezinne Nwude, MD, who spoke for the medical staff members after their first vote of no confidence and whose employment was now threatened, was honored with an NAACP ImageAward on Sept. 25. The News- Times report on the awards notes that she had been recognized previously for “excel- lence in leadership” by SCP Health and in 2017 was MCSA’s Physician of the Year. On Oct. 24, 2021, the News-Times reported that at least four of the physicians who complained about MCSA leadership — the Nwudes, Smart and Khan — weren’t offered new positions at the hospital under its new contract with ESS/HCC. Gilliam said the physicians weren’t interviewed for new positions, and “no valid excuse was given” as to why they weren’t asked to stay on at MCSA. Cindy Grimmett, executive assistant to interimCEO Blaylock, told the News-Times that the doctors employed through SCPhad also been offered a chance to meet with MCSA leadership “to explore opportunities to work together moving forward, even if that is not through employment with ESS.” But Gilliam disputed that, saying her clients hadn’t been notified of the opportunity to talk to the hospital’s leadership. “It appears that they made the ultimate sacrifice … losing their jobs at a hospital in the community of patients for which they fought so vehemently to protect,” she said. Nov. 10, 2021 was their last day at MCSA. Starting fresh The Nwudes were able to bounce back after they lost their jobs at MCSA. The cou- ple already owned two clinics in Union County, Arkansas (where El Dorado is the county seat), and in late 2021, William Harper, MD, a long-time family physician in El Dorado, offered to let them buy his clinic. Before the offer from Harper came up, Nwude had been planning to start work at a hospital in Louisiana, where she received her licensure in December 2021. She began seeing patients at her new clinic in El Dorado on Jan. 10, 2022. “This is a huge, huge blessing that we did not see coming, and to be given an opportu- nity to serve our community in this capac- ity, that’s really humbling,” she told the El DoradoNews-Times . “I’ve always wanted to be in town and serve our community.” In March, MCSA announced that David Fox would be taking over as CEO. Fox pre- viously led a nonprofit hospital inMountain Home and had held a leadership position at CHI St. Vincent in Little Rock. Fox told members of the El Dorado Rotary Club in July that MCSA’s door was open to staff members who had left the hos- pital last year “to return and still have the same benefits and tenure,”according to the News-Times . “The words I use … ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day.’I can’t make all this change and bring all this back in a day, a week or a month,”he said. “We’re spending time building those relationships. It takes a little bit of sales- manship, and I have that in me, but it also takes some honesty and integrity.” Street remains employed with CHS as a project CEO, according to his LinkedIn profile. MCSA will begin a partnership with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences with the establishment of a regional cam- pus in a revitalization of what was formerly known as the Area Health Education Cen- ters (AHEC), a residency program for phy- sicians-in-training. n Caitlan Butler is the managing editor of El Dorado News-Times , Camden News and Magnolia Banner-News . She and Tia Lyons, another News-Times reporter, were recognized for their reporting on the 2021 unrest at MCSA in the Arkansas Press Association’s 2022 Better Newspaper Editorial contest. “Fox told members of the El Dorado Rotary Club in July that MCSA’s door was open to staff members who had left the hospital last year “to return and still have the same benefits and tenure,” according to the News-Times .”