Parish to hire mediator to help resolve FFH issues

A mediator will step in to help resolve recent issues involving Franklin Foundation Hospital and Hospital Service District 1.
The St. Mary Parish Council approved hiring attorney Gary McGoffin of the Durio, McGoffin, Stagg & Ackermann law firm Wednesday at a rate of $300 per hour.
The motion by Councilman Lionel “Butch” Metz that included a $10,000 cap passed with no opposition after the council reconvened following a 35-minute executive session.
At the onset of the meeting, council chairman Steve Bierhorst announced that an item on the agenda to consider removal of some or all Hospital Service District board members would be pulled from the agenda.
“We all need to work together to try to solve this for ourselves, our community and our hospital,” said Councilman David Hanagriff after agreeing to pull the item.
Controversy at the hospital has been brewing for almost two months.
In special and regular meetings the board has terminated without cause, reinstated and since extended the current contracts of Drs. Steve McPherson, internal medicine, and Donna Tesi, general surgery. Amid public outcry, the board voted five weeks ago to honor both contracts until March 31 and asked hospital CEO Claudia Eisenmann to begin new contract negotiations. Prior to the board’s October meeting when the contracts were terminated McPherson’s contract was good through March and Tesi’s through September.
Also, the board along with Eisenmann retained legal counsel with the threat of defamation, slander and libel litigation against two outspoken physicians, Drs. Brent Allain and Randall Horton. It also voted to remove board commissioner Allan Von Werder from his seat as board chairman.
Many people have spoken on the situation at meetings of both the hospital board and parish council but Wednesday the council only heard from one person, Karen St. Blanc, a registered nurse employed at Foundation for more than 43 years. She said in those years she has worked in all clinical facets of hospital and is now in administration dealing with computerization of medical records.
She said her main concern in the past few weeks has been a lack of confidentiality of hospital business.
“In the past patient safety concerns, medical staff issues, peer review issues and credentialing all were handled internally,” she said. “It never was in the public forum and that’s really not where it belongs.”
Further, she said, contracts have always been reviewed, renegotiated, canceled or revised in the review process.
“We didn’t have this public forum,” she said. “The privacy and confidential nature of these matters prevent the Franklin Foundation staff and the hospital from publicly discussing this information.
“Staff is busy taking care of patients,” LeBlanc said. “And the matters leading us here today, I read in the paper and that really frightened me because I wasn’t privilege to the information that many lay persons in the community seemed to know about a specific incident — the facts that should be a confidential matter that supposedly took place. The hospital works hard to protect the patient’s confidential information.”
On the other hand, she said, “You have to learn how to run health care as a business — that’s what our leadership does.”
In her time at FFH, she said she remembers when the staff had to supply their own paper and pens as well as beverages, and when they underwent a 10 percent across the board pay cut.
“The resources and guidance of the management contract … the hard work of the medical staff bringing on new services, working through all these changes, adapting to all of these changes and the sound business decisions that the board of commissioners did make for all of these years, we are now sustainable,” she said. The hospital is now in a state for the art facility and also has a new medical office building, she added.
“There’s no way all of the rumors can be resolved, but it’s just time to stop in the public forum and move forward and let the board of commissioners and hospital leaders carry on the day to day business of the hospital,” she said.
“There’s no question that this present board has done an outstanding job,” Bierhorst said. “They may have made a couple of mistakes along the way, but there’s not many rural hospitals that have six to seven million dollars in the bank and build a million dollar facility and pay for it in cash — not many — we’ve just got a little hiccup in the road that we’ve got to get past.”
Following the meeting, Bierhorst noted that McGoffin has worked with the parish before to mediate the situation involving the sinking of the tourist welcome center in Morgan City.
“I think there’s been some mistakes made on both sides of the issue,” he said. “But dragging it on out in the media and the public is not getting it anywhere.”
He said the physicians involved and the hospital board have agreed to participate with the mediator. He added that he would expect a resolution within a month.
Bierhorst said the hospital board that meets at 5 p.m. today will consider approval of talks with the mediator.
In other business the council:
—Passed resolutions on agreements with New World Systems Corp. and with Edmonson Associates to provide technical assistance services; purchase agreements with Louisiana Wetlands LLC and Kilgore Corp. for mitigation credits.
—Passed resolutions on certificates of substantial completion on improvement projects at the Russo and Marcel boat landings; a change order and notice of substantial completion with Gray Construction Corp. on the Morgan City Industrial Road; a change order and notice of substantial completion with Gray on parishwide sewer lift station upgrades; and a change order and notice of substantial completion with LA Contracting Enterprise LLC on construction of the bulk waste bin 4 at the West End Solid Waste Pickup Station..
—Passed resolutions approving applications to the Governor’s Local Government Assistance Program for sidewalk construction from Aucoin Road to Waterworks Road along Lake Palourde in Amelia; construction of a Cotten Road connector and improvements to the access road at Kemper Williams Park near Patterson; and sidewalk construction along Cypremort Road between La. 318 and Big Four Corners Road in western St. Mary Parish.
—Appointed Shirley B. Thibodeaux to Fire Protection District 1, and Edward Chase Jr. to the Boat Landing and Waterways Committee.