Four More EAMC All-Stars

Originally appeared on the Lee County Bulletin website

“Be sure your sins will find you out”! I was talking about Interlocking Directorates and someone told me that no one else will serve on those Boards, so what if a few noble directors reluctantly fill those positions and take a little for their trouble, everybody wins, don’t they?

The consumer never wins under monopoly. You would miss the point if you didn't see that having the same people on the most powerful corporations, the same people on the Metropolitan Planning Organizations and those same people holding the office of Commissioner, Revenue Commissioner, Judge, County Engineer, Sheriff, etc., ends in concentration of power and tyranny. It creates a class of Robber Barons like Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan who notoriously engaged in unethical business practices, formed Trusts and exploited workers—all to the detriment of customer, competitor and worker alike.

Congress established Anti-Trust laws to regulate business practices to ensure fair competition in an open-market economy for the benefit of consumers. However, local Interlocking Directorates guarantee EAMC’s health care monopoly, guarantee Auburn Bank's influence county wide (note the symbolic presence of Auburn Bank ATM’s in the hospital), guarantee EAMC’s new medical facility on the AU campus, guarantee Hubbard’s loan at Auburn Bank despite defaulting on the first, Hubbard’s wife ensconced at Auburn University, Oline Price's Supernumerary retirement account, Oline’s husband Randy seated in the Senate, Dr. Smalley’s daughter ensconced as EAMC VP, etc.. Interlocking Directorates create a demonstrably Closed-Market economy where friends and relatives are placed into high positions, no merit system. Consumers wake up, the longer we do nothing, the greater our losses.

EAMC, Auburn Bank and Auburn University, are controlled by a Gang of Plutocrats. In a previous post, we began spotlighting these All-Star Tyrants. Number 3, Sarah Smalley Nunnelly, was the last discussed and now, as promised, some others:

More EAMC All-Stars

4. EAMC All-Star triple-threat Bob Dumas plays multiple positions in capacities such as EAMC Board of Trustees, Auburn Bank CEO and Auburn University president pro tempore of the Board of Trustees. As EAMC Trustee, Bob Dumas did not support another hospital in Auburn to compete with EAMC. As Auburn University Board member, Bob Dumas supported EAMC’s construction of the AU Medical Clinic in Auburn. No possibility of conflict of interest when Dumas wears multiple hats. For Bob Dumas, it’s a win, win, win proposition. EAMC wins, Auburn Bank wins, and Auburn University wins. Surely he knew another hospital competing with EAMC was not good for Lee County; well, maybe just not good for Bob Dumas, EAMC, Auburn Bank or Auburn University. The Leviathan Directorate owns the Consumer! But then just because they have the same directors, doesn’t mean they would collude or do anything that wasn’t good for the citizens of Lee County. Or do you think they limited competition and lowered the quality of life for the average citizen of Lee County?

5. Batting 5th is Laura Grill. We’ve discussed this All-Star previously, but Whistle Blower 2 (WB-2) has brought up two incidents that occurred before Grill’s elevation to EAMC President. One would think that Ms. Grill would be sensitive to sexual harassment, but apparently not. A male physician allegedly grabbed a female technician’s head and thrust it into his crotch. When the technician reported it to the administration, Ms. Grill instructed the tech to “let it go”. Another physician reportedly pulled a male technician’s pants down and exposed his genitalia to everyone in the room as a “joke”. No reprimand whatsoever. No one would ever do that again, well, or maybe will, since there were no consequences. Laura Grill, of all people, you should be more sympathetic and change the culture of sexual harassment. Shame on you. Unrest among the ranks? Shocking, who'd of thunk that? Has anyone else noticed the attitude difference between the volunteers and the paid employees at the hospital? The volunteers spread cheer. The employees are down-trodden and unhappy.

Let's Remember the last three lines of the ancient Hippocratic Oath:

“Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves. While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot!”

6. Next "batterer" up is All-Star “Nurse Ratched”. She plays defense at the backdoor entrance of the after-hours Emergency Room. Ratched gives true meaning to Dante’s proverb, “Abandon Hope ye who enter here”. She loves to demonstrate that no matter how much you are suffering, she feels no pain. You must therefore wait as long as she wants you to wait, confessing to every pimple you have ever had, even though you had been admitted the week before and those records were completely up to date. According to Whistle Blower 1 (WB-1), this backdoor admitting nurse warehoused him for hours (during the peak of Covid-19) in a tiny room with several other patients without masks or proper social distancing. WB-1 claims Ratched was more concerned about proving dominance and demanding unnecessary information, than relieving the pain and nausea he had been suffering for over ten hours. She insisted on a detailed recitation of everything that previous doctors had ever diagnosed, suffering all the while. He wound up waiting many more hours. He later understood when several of the diagnoses he’d listed, but was not then symptomatic, were itemized and coded on the UB-04 bill. Understand that the Billing and Coding departments are the ones who submit the charges, not the doctors. What happens before and after the patient sees the doctor is EAMC’s cold-blooded science of maximizing profit through fraud.

After many hours of suffering pain and nausea, WB-1 was eventually assigned a bed, a humane nurse and a proper doctor. The doctor prescribed an IV for fluids and nausea and that’s all it took to relieve the pain he had needlessly suffered. WB-1 said as long as he was held captive by Ratched (the exit door was literally locked and the patient was unable to leave without an EAMC gatekeeper), he was not given anything for his symptoms and suffered needlessly for hours due to Nurse Ratched’s callous insensitivity.

WB-1 says EAMC is paid by the number of diagnoses listed by the hospital, so the Billing and Coding Departments are motivated to list as many as possible to maximize the patient’s bill and EAMC profit. WB-1 has written a detailed account of his experiences at EAMC which he has promised to submit later.

7. Wayne Alderman, EAMC All-Star Board of Directors and Auburn Bank Independent Director and Secretary and Auburn University Dean and Professor Emeritus. At this point the practice and pattern is clear: concentrate power by interlocking directorates of the big three: EAMC, Auburn Bank and Auburn University. Welcome to Lee County where we limit competition and raise prices so we can provide jobs for our friends and family. Let the peasants eat cake.

Patients of EAMC, if the service one receives at the hospital were good, it would be one thing, but the service can be awful. EAMC has gone to great extents to stop competition by securing its employees a place on the CON Board, so it has a monopoly which is subsidized by the taxpayer in the form of an annual $7 M Special Hospital Tax, by the Lee County Commission in the form of cash subsidy for the ER, ambulances, payment for prisoner care, etc. EAMC does not pay taxes, not on property, nor income. EAMC has defied Federal law to post prices for standard procedures performed at the hospital. It has not allowed WB-1 to see his Designated Record Set in spite of repeated certified letters requesting to exercise HIPAA rights. Finally, the County Commission has failed to discipline EAMC for its habitual FRAUD.