WAIMEA — A complaint from a former North Hawaii Community Hospital employee could be heading to litigation.
WAIMEA — A complaint from a former North Hawaii Community Hospital employee could be heading to litigation.
Cathie Ferrari, 71, terminated from her job on July 18, 2016, was advised in a separation agreement to keep her concerns confidential except to her spouse, attorney and tax advisor. She felt so strongly about how she was treated while working at NHCH she waived her severance pay.
“I refused the no-talk, no-tell,” she told North Hawaii News.
On Feb. 8, her Honolulu attorney Charles Brower filed a complaint for “Wrongful Discharge with or without Discrimination” to U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
Ferrari first worked for NHCH from 2001 to 2010, and left because of a family emergency. In 2014 she was recruited back to the hospital after submitting an application and was offered not one, but three positions there, according to Ferrari.
She accepted a leadership job as a nursing manager and was given the responsibility of coordinating five interrelated clinics. After one month, Ferrari presented a gap analysis of the functioning clinic to her supervisor.
“She said, ‘I don’t read things on paper, you will have to send it to me electronically,’” Ferrari said. “Four months later, she told me in a meeting, along with then human resources director, she couldn’t understand anything I said, wrote or texted.”
Ferrari went on sick leave June 28, 2016, traveling to The Amen Clinic in Seattle and Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for tests regarding her cognitive health, where no evidence of impairment was found. A local doctor examined her as well and also found nothing.
On July 18, 2016, Ferrari received a phone call from NHCH administrators while still on sick leave, according to her.
“They said my position had been ‘restructured’ and I would be terminated as of that date,” she said. “They said it wasn’t because of performance and only due to restructuring, but didn’t offer eligibility for me to any other positions at the hospital, although three were posted that I was qualified for.”
Leaving her job without being able to say goodbye to her fellow employees was difficult.
“They take away our dignity and shame us,” Ferrari stated. “We don’t get a chance to say goodbye to our ohana there. In a community like this, your fellow employees are your family. I even held a hospital employee picnic at my house.”
In addition, numerous complaints were filed against NHCH recently through Hawaii Nurses’ Association, affiliated with the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), and are still pending.
Another job termination was that of Big Island-born David Knowles, known as a “brilliant physician’s assistant,” according to Dr. Samuel Gingrich. Knowles helped at least 20 doctors at the highest levels, and it was his dream to come home and serve there.
“This is my community hospital. I was raised here,’” he told patients.
On May 19, his mid-level job was eliminated, he told NHN.
The old health care model, Knowles explained, “was based on how things might go in the hospital on the best day. But it’s never the best day. You have to plan on how things might go on the worst day.”
Several eager employers are interested in hiring Knowles, according to sources.
Physicians’ assistants, nurse practitioners and experienced midwives are among support staff who help doctors the most. Good physician assistants can do a doctor’s work, but more cheaply: They extend the continuity of care and bring down its cost. Meanwhile, the hospital is moving forward working with fly-in physicians and high-tech, remote doctoring.
The staff turnover figures presented by Art Ushijima, president and CEO of The Queen’s Health Systems and chairman of NHCH’s board of directors, and NHCH President Cindy Kamakawa in an op-ed that ran in West Hawaii Today June 14 were misleading, according to primary sources. In that report, Queen’s claimed a cut of “one percent” of 315 employees, which equals three cuts, but NHN has documented seven terminations since May 19, as well as 10 recent resignations — people forced out, frustrated with working conditions or those going elsewhere for personal reasons.
Queen’s may not be counting the terminations of subcontracted employees either. Other terminations took the shape of what the CEO called “restructurings.”
North Hawaii News has reached out to Ushijima twice and to NHCH as well for interviews, but didn’t receive a response other than the op-ed piece, which provided their figures regarding terminations in May 2017.
Some employees were dismissed without warning by the hospital’s administration, while others got phone calls. In fact, many who have been terminated or resigned have found new jobs, but some, including people with families or nearing retirement, have not been so fortunate.
Several of those who spoke to NHN did so on the agreement their names would be withheld due to the sensitive nature of the subject.
“He was the most intelligent physicians’ assistant I’ve ever seen,” said one of the Big Island’s most senior doctors, referring to a Waimea native terminated in May.
“She was the stabilizing force in radiology,” said another radiologist of a 25-year veteran terminated just months before retirement.
An oncologist fired in May was escorted from the hospital by security after a disturbance, the nature of which is still not clear.
“The hospital is asking for silence, as there is an ‘active investigation’ underway,” said an employee still on staff.
A top orthopedic surgeon, offered a contract including a 30 percent salary cut, has left as well.
According to recent reports, Kamakawa has advised employees not to comment publicly about a recent story in North Hawaii News concerning staff turnover — or risk consequences ranging from immediate termination to the withdrawal of potential severance packages.
It’s doubtful, several sources said, that the terminated workers will be returning, despite Kamakawa’s comment to North Hawaii News in the first story that, some of these people “will be able to look at other positions.”
Many interviews with recently terminated employees suggest that they will not be rushing to fill those new opportunities — and those people staring at separation/severance deals are not feeling a lot of aloha for Kamakawa. Their friends and former colleagues are also upset.
Some, like Sherry Brian, were forced out in other ways. In 2015, after working as a registered OB-GYN nurse for 19 years, she said she found herself in very emotional hospital confrontations that she considered frivolous.
“At my regularly scheduled doctor’s appointment I burst into tears, and was put on a disability leave,” she said. “I’d planned to work through to retirement, but the emotional and mental toll became too great. The horrible part is that we’re people just trying to help other people.”
“On the Big Island,” said an anonymous source still employed at NHCH, “if you get sacked, there are few options. And people with roots, nearing retirement — what can they do?”
Jade McGaff, an OB-GYN for many years, was another who left because of issues with Queen’s, although a recently terminated RN called her “the one you wanted there; the best.”
“I’m cutting cords with NHCH,” McGaff told NHN, “because of the imposition of Western medicine and everything outside its purview, like acupuncture and homeopathy. Hospitals everywhere fear problems, but happy people don’t sue. We’re working with humans, not machines. As Hawaiians, we believe in energy. Western medicine does not do so well for us.”
If given the opportunity, what would she ask of Queen’s CEO Ushijima?
“You need to re-think this firing process,” she said, “because you’re not connecting with the community.”
Ushijima and Kamikawa will hold a meeting with the Waimea Community Association at 5:30 p.m. July 11 in the Waimea School Cafeteria.