At a December 4th special meeting of the Mendocino Coast District Hospital (MCDH), its Board of Directors interviewed then offered a contract to John Parigi to take on the interim position of Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at the hospital. The move was necessitated by the resignation of the previous CFO, Wade Sturgeon, after his two year run in the office was laden with criticism.
Sturgeon is one of the defendants in a lawsuit filed in federal court (Northern District of California) by a former chief human resources officer at MCDH. The filing, which cites the False Claims Act as its basis, also names as defendants Bob Edwards, MCDH's Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Steve Lund, MCDH Board President, and the hospital itself. See the October 25 edition of the AVA for further details on this case, including an explanation of the False Claims Act and how it may relate to the year-old workplace harassment claim made by the HR chief against Sturgeon.
Mr. Parigi appears to have made a career out of serving as an interim financial officer for hospitals near and far. He is on a month to month basis at MCDH, with re-appointments made by CEO Edwards and the Board of Directors ultimate approval.
Interim in Parigi's career can mean multiple years, as it did at his last known employer, Healdsburg District Hospital (HDH) in Sonoma County. His stint in Healdsburg roughly mirrors that of their former CEO Nancy Schmid. Those who follow MCDH closely will note that Ms. Schmid came on board in Fort Bragg a couple months back as the Quality/Risk Manager and has apparently taken on the duties of the plant services manager.
It is unclear what the exact reasons were, but the previous plant services manager was recently sacked, more or less without warning. One evening he was presenting to the board in his usual efficient manner, the next day he was out. This man had been in charge of getting several major maintenance projects on the track toward completion. As far as could be seen he approached such projects as the central sterile system, HVAC (heating ventilation, and air conditioning), and ATS (automatic transfer switch) in a gung ho and transparent manner. He had regained the trust of OSHPD (California’s Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development) officials, a trust that had been lost by MCDH for several years.
Schmid won't be starting from ground zero, but she, too, will have to endeavor to gain trust from state officials who have been misled in the not so distant past by MCDH concerning these large capital maintenance projects. See the Nov. 22 AVA for more detail on the dismissal of the previous plant services manager.
At HDH, Ms. Schmid served as CEO from 2013 until this year. According to press releases her contract will expire at the end of the year (2017), and Ms. Schmid and the North Sonoma County Health Care District board decided not to renew it. What that means is that HDH's Board of Directors was not going to extend Schmid's contract. They will presumably be paying her until December 31 while she also collects her first paychecks at MCDH.
The official announcement from the HDH Board regarding Ms. Schmid's departure noted that she had successfully turned around the hospital's finances. A 2015 story in the Cloverdale Reveille provides some insight.
“Alarmed by the hospital’s cash flows, Schmid suspended all employee merit raises and led a 20 percent downsizing of total employees. An emergency loan was needed to cover payroll at the end of last summer. At the time, Schmid and healthcare district directors told the public the hospital needed to be 'right-sized' and blamed billing errors and other poor business practices. A new chief financial officer was hired along with a new chief nursing officer, chief operating officer, chief human resource officer and other senior leadership personnel. 'Everything was broken. We stopped getting reliable numbers and we didn’t know how bad it was,' said Bill Hawn, a board member of the healthcare district.”
Sound familiar? Then there's the MCDH Medical Executive Committee and its Chief of Staff, John Kermen, who authored a full page letter in the Dec. 7 editions of the coastal papers. Kermen sums up MCDH's current situation with this statement, “It comes down to two questions: 1) Do you want a place to go when you or your loved one has an emergent medical condition or trauma? (the helicopter does not fly in bad weather) and 2) Do you want your property to have any value?”
Both sentences should prompt readers to recall their junior high Civics class and the unit that discusses the methods of propaganda. “Do you want your property to have any value?” falls directly under the Civics lesson highlighting that propaganda appeals to fear.
This taxpayer, and I'd expect a good deal more of the citizenry, expect more from MCDH's chief of staff than the lowest form of fear mongering.
OMG people. This is deja vu all over again. Wait until Schmid takes over the reigns from Bob Edwards. Staff thought they hated things under his leadership wait until they experience Schmid and Parigi. The FIRST thing that will happen is that there will be a layoff siting the need to right-size the hospital. This will yield savings immediately because that is the quickest way to impact a margin is cutting staff. It’s also the laziest way. Rather than doing the “work” people like Parigi and Schmid take the easy way out and cut staff then blame all of the ills on prior leadership, Trust me…I saw it FIRST hand as the Asst. CFO at Healdsburg District Hospital. I hope the people at MCDH get wise before its too late.