Danville Register and Bee
Sunday, December 9, 2007
It’s hard to be mad at Danville Regional Medical Center for trying to buy the cheapest products it can find. Most people do that every time they shop. The trend to buy the cheapest forces all kinds of businesses to work hard to keep their prices low.
The long-term, obvious cost of that low-prices-at-any-cost trend can be seen all over Danville as former Dan River Inc. mill buildings are slowly deconstructed for their bricks and beams. The manufacturing jobs that used to fill those now-empty buildings were shipped overseas. It’s a trend that has affected American workers in all kinds of industries for decades.
The Americans who work at the Hatcher Center, a local sheltered workshop for adults with mental and physical disabilities, are no different.
For the past 15 years, Hatcher Center employees have made hospital gowns for Danville Regional Medical Center. But the hospital is now buying more of its gowns overseas, saving $4 per gown. Orders from the hospital have dropped from 349 per month to 180.
“Representatives of the purchasing department of the hospital came out in September when we increased the price of the gowns and said they couldn’t afford them anymore,” said Chris Wright, executive director of the Hatcher Center. “… They said they would continue to buy them, but not as many.”
In addition to price, the hospital cited a number of new features it wanted for its hospital gowns. In fairness to the hospital, it should be able to buy any kind of gown it wants. In fairness to the Hatcher Center, it could have made the gowns the way the hospital wanted them made - just not at the same price as the overseas suppliers.
“Our wages in the workshop are based on area prevailing wage rates, and we needed to raise the cost just to cover expenses,” Wright said.
It’s been a tough year for Danville Regional Medical Center, and the hospital’s leadership no doubt hates being portrayed as Ebenezer Scrooge on this issue. Danville Regional struggled - but eventually maintained - full accreditation from the Joint Commission, but the time it spent under the cloud of a “preliminary denial of accreditation” hurt its reputation in the community.
The hospital has worked to change its image with its “Healthcare Neighbor to Neighbor” public relations campaign. But the hospital’s owners should know they serve a community that has been devastated by corporate outsourcing and downsizing.
Danville Regional Medical Center could boost its image here by getting the Hatcher Center to continue to make all of its gowns. Danvillians would appreciate that kind of effort, especially in the name of helping out such a good cause.
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52 comments:
Congratulations ! lifepoint has degraded the fabric of the community even further .Guess we should all learn chinese and spanish.
Don't forget the other local businesses that have lost out due to the sale of the hospital--law firms, benefits suppliers, office supply firms, accountants. The hidden cost to the community is immeasurable. Did the leaders not expect this? Of course they did; but they were intoxicated with the notion of having all that cash to control. And what has the community seen of all that money? Four new senior centers. Not a very good trade-off, methinks.
When will the Danville Regional Foundation be reporting to the community how it plans on disbursing the next batch of funds to the community?
Once again, another agency/leadership group that appears to be immune to the concept of transparency.
Exactly , until Danville and it's so-called "leaders" of the last 100 years realize economy is larger than Danville and that some things should remain in Danville's control, nothing will ever be accomplished .
Another example: Electric and water rates : Instead of the "leaders" using the river to generate Hydro electric for Danville and sell the excess( they admit there is excess generation)they don't ,Danville continues to outsource power at ever increasing rates, also,They are now trying to make the fewer people pay for the same amount of processed water as was needed when Danville actually had jobs and a future.
Minimum wage jobs will not provide for danville and it's ever growing gluttony for money for a few people.
The needs of the many must begin to take precedence over the wants of a few and danville has always been good at making many provide for few.
Also appear to be immune to the concepts of "conflict of interest","insider trading", "misappropriation", "social extortion" and about a thousand other business concepts.
Appears Mr. Humphrey has successfully graduated from lifepoints Grinch school of public support.He must have kept Artie and the others' playbooks.
Just my opinion but it seems kind of lacking in male genitals that DRMC can sponsor an intersection, build a Habitat house and lead the Salvation Army kettle campaign, but they can't buy gowns from the Hatcher Center.
I think i've seen it all. If they hadn't supported these very worthwhile charity groups, you'd have been bitching they did nothing to give back to the community. I say stop shopping at Wal-Mart and eating at McDOnalds because they sure as hell don't buy anything from local providers.
I say READ, grasshopper, before you jump....I'm saying, if they can do all that, why drop the Hatcher Center, which they've been doing all along. Never mind, I'll just go back to the rock I hide under since you are so damn polite.
So...new observer here...when does the line get drawn about which local charities a business has to support before their viability is affected?
"shopping at Wal-Mart and eating at McDOnalds "
If you'd pay attention you'd know that McDonalds low quality slop is partly responsible for the disgusting state of obesity in the US with their low quality crap and Wal mart is quickly falling out of favor socially and globally since Sam Walton died due in part to their bully tactics, sounds like lifepoint on a larger scale.
so that means you never set foot in Wal-Mart?
Mcdonalds absolutely not ,Walmart only due to a monopoly kinda like lifepoint.
LifePoint Inc. is the company that currently manages the hospital. Mills believes that reducing services in Needles is in the economic interest of LifePoint, which operates another hospital in the region.
http://www.mohavedailynews.com/articles/2007/12/10/news/local/local2.txt
Get the whole story...just another worthless town that thinks they need to be given everything and when they enter the world of free-market economy, eveything's a bucket of crap.
"Get the whole story...just another worthless town that thinks they need to be given everything and when they enter the world of free-market economy, eveything's a bucket of crap."
When you go from an organization with a primary purpose to serve the healthcare needs of the community and to reinvest all "profits" back into that mission vs. one with a primary purpose to send pofits outside of the community then YES, it smells like a bucket of crap.
Generally speaking the NAFTA CAFTA and to be SAFTA are bucket's of crap as they have no CPSC,UL,ANSI, SNELL or any other product safety standards as with the recent China -lead fiasco.The current trend of downward spiral of the US is the result of "free market economy" which is anything but.
Anonymous said...
Get the whole story...just another worthless town that thinks they need to be given everything and when they enter the world of free-market economy, eveything's a bucket of crap.
December 10, 2007 5:24:00 PM EST
YOU should get the whole story. In a nutshell, Lifepoint took a longterm lease on this hospital, saw dollar signs, built a new facility 2o mins. away ACROSS State line, and abandoned this facility after they had reduced it to little more than a med express. Typical of lifepoint cut staff cut services etc. Now folks in this community whose insurance won't allow crossing state lines are in a jam. Lots of ugly details (If YOU bother to get the whole story) including stealing equipment.
Where do you get "all the details?"
Public record along with the 3 million that lifepoint stole from the city there as "matching funds" then moved the equipment and virtually closed the hospital.
Seems as if all these towns were running their hospitals well to begiin with, they wouldn't need to look to sell in the first place.
"Seems as if all these towns were running their hospitals well to begiin with, they wouldn't need to look to sell in the first place."
Well run businesses get sold all the time, then shut down once the new owners realize that their ideas and plans dont work. I can name several in my line of work that were bought out by corporate giants and eventually shut down when "the corporate philosophy" didnt work in that location.
I believe OUR hospital was efficient, effective and profitable, but most of all self sustaining. The boys operated under the ASSUMPTION that non-profit hospitals were destined to fail in the future and decided to sell it off while it had some value. Lets face it NO company would have bought it if they thought they couldn't make money with it. THE difference is (as has been said repeatedly on this blog) profits used to go back into the facility. Now those profits go elsewhere and are needed to support a portion of a much larger company. Therefore it takes MORE profits to operate in the black, hence the cuts and penny pinching.
how about the nice form letter and the walmart gift card?seems to me the savings from the gowns trickled down, almost like urine to the low hanging fruit
The cards are nothing compared to the bonuses paid to the "o"s for continuing to run DRMC into the ground, specifically losing from 15 - 40,000 dollars a day in operations. surgical schedule is now +/-15 compared to 45+/- before lifepoint.
FA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA......And the holiday flex schedules the managers had to turn into to the O's today, but at least you got your $15.00 WalMart card, right?
What's a holiday flex schedule?
Means lifepoint has done away with another benefit: seniority.
Mostly because they've run off all of the RN's.
Where did the $4.00 per gown savings go? Back into DRMC?
or...................
"Bill Carpenter got the top job at LifePoint Hospitals Inc. earlier this summer and now the company's board of directors has put his pay in line with the CEO title.
On Sept. 19, the board's compensation committee set Carpenter's cash compensation at $725,000, effective June 26 - the date he was named CEO and it was announced former chief executive Ken Donahey had resigned.
In 2005, as executive vice president and general counsel, Carpenter's salary was $445,192 with a $494,312 bonus. Donahey's salary in 2005 was a little more than $755,000 with a bonus of about $985,000.
Also last week, the committee set the pay of Owen Shell Jr., non-executive chairman of the board, at $125,000 in addition to the $75,000 he'll receive for serving on the company's board.
There's your gown money and , our shift bonuses and premiums for short notice working,staffing money etc... and danville's well being in general.
Do you actually believe that DRMC's very existence had anything to do with the salary news? Good lord folks, get a grip. This blog has sure become not much more than a hitching post for mindless complaints. What a waste of blog-space.
With the drop in admissions, surgeries, physicians leaving, staff turn over and moral etc. I would not suspect our local "o"s get a large bonus. I would assume they are based on profits.
Your sister hospital in Martinsville is in trouble, too.
Every employee has to be cut 16 hours a week.
That averages over a week a month that we lose.
We're talking about over 15,000 hours cut a week hospital wise.
Hail to the shareholders and screw the patients, they just get in the way, anyway.
If they're cutting hours that much, there must not be very many patients.
And as for your comment about shareholders, I own stock in a couple companies and i've never felt like a villain.
Yeah, the reason that census in down is because of the way Lifepoint manages there facilities. People know that the employees are put in situations that could be potentially dangerous.
Are they cutting hours in danville? That doesn't make sense as they keep saying there is not enough staff...
Is it true Danville staff is having to pull short hours? Is patient census that short? If there is no staff, how can patients be attended to?
It has nothing to do with patient census and everything to do with poor management, nobody paying attention to numbers.
Didn't say you were a villian. but those compaies you have stock in, are the products they produce responsbile for patients care? When hospitals try to run like a profitable business, patients lose.
Any hospital profit or nfp needs to run like a profitable business or there will soon no longer be a hospital.
But part of running like a profitable business means making sound business decisions and sound strategic planning. have we seen that here? NO. Please do not think the problems are caused by trying to make a profit. ALL hospitals must do this. The problems here are caused by poor management choices, gut reaction business decisions and incapable decision makers. There is a differene.
"Is it true Danville staff is having to pull short hours?"
"Are they cutting hours in danville?"
To answer both of these , YES I've been victim to it. lifepoint has been doing this from the start.
Patients and physicians are going to other facilities due to the incompetence of lifepoint.Period.
The census is lower than usual, since being sold to lifepoint.
Basically those who can physically make it somewhere else do, and those that can't, end up in DRMC,the "staffing grid cuts the staff and then a rash of illnesses hits and there is no one to answer, a situation that did not exist with the old DRMC.
FACT: lifepoint and the 5 idiots that sold and bought the hospital destroyed healthcare in Danville.
Oh and to address the "visionaries " in Danville , these minimum wage "shopping mecca" jobs are a joke none of them even come close to provision under the Gov't poverty level definition unless you are the landowner or the corporation that runs it , a few rich people getting richer , just like lifepoint.
"Danville Regional Medical Center could boost its image here by getting the Hatcher Center to continue to make all of its gowns. Danvillians would appreciate that kind of effort, especially in the name of helping out such a good cause."
I would bet a million dollas of the foundation's money that such a move would go completely unnoticed and that the usual moaner and whiners on this blog would find a downside. Give me a break.
Here's a break , a news break grow a brain.
The moaners on this page shouldn't have to ...US corporations have deteriorated the economy and state of well being in the name of"global economy" to the point that the average family in the US cannot and will not ever get out of debt while the 1 percent that has 95% of the wealth in the US continues to prosper off of the work of the millions of citizens. Northern VA continues to prosper off of funds and projects that are bypassed from South Central VA always have and probably always will.
Wow...them's some big numbers you're cypherin' there Jethro.
Anonymous said...
Is it true Danville staff is having to pull short hours? Is patient census that short? If there is no staff, how can patients be attended to?
December 13, 2007 2:34:00 PM EST
Maybe someone can confirm, I heard that EVERY employee has to take off 5 days before the end of the year to reduce manhours paid.
Work hours and Census have both been low since lifepoint , it seems that most people with internet did their homework when they found out lifepoint had "bought" something that the public had built over generations for the well being of the community, and found out about lifepoints past and operational m.o. and decided they didn't want to risk their lives with such a despicable company.
Outsourcing is the new corporate way of life: take jobs from Americans and send them overseas. Or, remove the employees from your payroll, outsource the work to another company but at least you don't carry those employees on your books. Reduces payroll, reduces benefits paid. But you can still claim to be an American company.
Yep,The US has become the world's cheap whore.And lifepoint and the like are no more than pimps.
This blog is quite interesting, accidently found it while looking for some medical info. As a objective observer it seems like there are a few bloggers who are making it their business to bring down the hospital and city(town?)of danville to any extent. Do you wonder why some of your doctors are leaving? My goodness don't you people have anything better to do? It would seem to me that you would want to move on, make the best of the situation and rebuild your community. How sad that you are so very negative about everything and constantly going over and over the same thing. As a medical professional myself, I have worked in many hospitals over my lifetime. If you think the grass is greener on the other side you are sorely mistaken! Hospitals are struggling everywhere due to the high numbers of non paying patients. Add to that fact the shortage in nursing nationwide, we are all just trying to do the best we can to take care of our patients. Yes there are ideal nurse/patient ratio's,I can't even remember when we've had that. Its a fact of life, things are bad everywhere. If you research hospitals in any of the leading online journals you will be better informed about what is going on in the country.
I call BS on that last post....Accidently stumbled upon it doing medical research.
???RUMOR OR TRUTH??? Heard (at church, mind you!)recently the LP upper management in Brentwood moved into new luxury offices and will celebrate their year end bonuses financed by our flex schedules. But, REMEMBER you got your $15.00 Wallyworld gift card, right??
Can anyone (factually) share what positive outcomes have resulted from the LP ownership? There must be some. I frequently encounter employees from the hospital who claim that situations are horrible from working conditions to patient care and they adamantly urge folks not to go there. When asked why they stay, the usual comment is that they don't want to commute to work elsewhere.
My concern...how can the morale and patient care be optimal with so manny discontent employees?
Seems to me it would be better to hire all travelers for patinet care than to have so many miserable nurses at the bedside.
Any thoughts?
Tina
Travelers are just like LifePoint administration and supporters of LifePoint - no interest in Danville and surrounding communities - just in it for the "big bucks."
"???RUMOR OR TRUTH??? Heard (at church, mind you!)recently the LP upper management in Brentwood moved into new luxury offices and will celebrate their year end bonuses financed by our flex schedules. But, REMEMBER you got your $15.00 Wallyworld gift card, right??"
Uh...you've never worked for a for-profit corporation, have you?
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