The meeting took place on Saturday, October 2, 2021 from 12 - 2 pm (Mountain Time).
Nearly 100 people gathered at First United Methodist Church in Gallup, NM, with equal numbers joining online, to hear from patients and health care workers about an emerging crisis at Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services. RMCHCS is currently managed from a distance by Community Hospital Corporation (CHC) of Plano, Texas. Because large numbers of medical workers have been fired, laid off, or have resigned over patient care concerns in the last year, the RMCHCS has begun closing down departments, including Women's Health. No one from CHC or the hospital board attended the meeting. Gallup Mayor Louie Bonaguidi and City Councilor Linda Garcia were on hand to express their concerns.
Passions ran high at the townhall, especially when local doctor Lawrence Andrade recalled being threatened by hospital CEO Don Smithburg after saying things Smithburg disagreed with at a meeting. Community member Doug Shannon came to a spirited defense of Dr. Andrade and other RMCHCS workers. Attendees also expressed anger over the fact that women now have to travel to Albuquerque to give birth in a hospital, and sick newborns must receive care far from home.
Doctors also reported that their drive to form a union was successful, with the vote count having taken place at National Labor Relations Board offices on Friday, October 1st. Doctors explained that they unionized to have greater job security when they speak up on patient care issues.
QUOTATIONS FROM THE TOWNHALL
Sara Pikaart, RN
"My very first nursing job was in the Womens' Health unit at RMCH, and I worked there for nearly ten years. That unit had my full heart. I knew I was where I was meant to be. And I considered it my home away from home. I honestly thought I would work there for my whole career."
"Last fall the nurses again raised concerns over dangerously low staffing levels. We provided the background on our department and some of the struggles over the year. We were not heard."
"The truth is, we found the work to be unsafe for our patients, and unsafe for our own physical and mental health."
"We wanted to reassure our patients that we would be there to give excellent and compassionate care. There's only one problem, there's not enough of us."
"Women come up to me with tears in their eyes. They ask me what is going on there, and where are we supposed to give birth?"
Susan Polachek RN, former Director of Women's Services RMCHCS discusses the critical staffing shortage.
"As nurses, myself included, we grew tired, but our care never faltered. We felt our cries for help fell on deaf ears. Administration provided excuses instead of assistance."
"We were forced to close our post-partum unit in hopes that it would help with the staffing crisis."
"This state of exhaustion, stress, and lack of support from administration caused many nurses to leave. Unsafe decisions were continuously made by administration. Over my career the number of nurses working has shrunk from a strong 18 to a devastating three. And now our unit has been forced to close its doors, and again, administration barely blinks an eye."
Mary Poel, MD, pediatrician at RMCHCS
"I thought we were building a great pediatric group as well, so we could keep sick babies here instead of sending them to Albuquerque where sometimes it was very difficult for families to visit them and take care of them and bond with them. Now we will not have OBs. We don't have the great nurses that we've had in the past."
"The fact this is we didn't have to lose all the nurses that have left."
"That's why I and many of the physicians here decided we need to have a union, so we as physicians can stick up for nurses."
Lindsey Mingus, Educator
"The closing of the Labor and Delivery Unit is devastating to this community, because those women and nurses and providers take care not only of the moms, the infants, and their families. And my heart breaks for this community, and the expecting moms, and families, who are now scrambling to find their care. Going to Albuquerque is not always an option for women in this area."
Hannah Palm, MD, OB-GYN, formerly of RMCHS
"I made the very difficult decision to resign because I felt like this hospital was not providing safe patient care, and I took an oath as a physician to provide safe patient care."
Caleb Lauber, MD, former RMCHCS Chief of Medical Staff who was terminated without cause by Community Hospital Corporation (CHC)
"This is your hospital. Through your tax dollars you pay for this. This is our hospital. We can continue to let it be what it is, with it's oversight in disarray. I don't want that."
Referring to Community Hospital Corporation (CHC) appointed CEO Don Smithburg: "In the back of my mind I was thinking, does he want to sell the hospital to some group who wants to buy it pennies on the dollar?"
Chris Hoover, MD, urologist working at RMCHCS discusses lack of accountability and transparency
"The Board is where the buck stops, that's where it's supposed to stop, right? And there's absolutely no transparency. We are not privy to the Board agenda or minutes. I'm a staff member at the hospital, and I don't get to see those things."
Lawrence Andrade, MD, Owner of Family Medicine Associates describes being verbally attached by Community Health Corporation (CHC) - appointed CEO Don Smithberg.
"I was asked by county commissioners and the city manager to go to the July 15 board meeting so a doctor was represented. After the meeting was over, CEO Don Smithberg, the best that CHC can give us, approached me. He started telling me that I was promoting lies and spreading malicious rumors because he denied giving me hospital privileges."
After Dr. Andrade explained he is in private practice and not affiliated with RMCHCH, Smithburg told him "You are angry and bitter because I kicked you out of RMCHCH."
"At which point he got in my face, and said BE A MAN."
"Since we are in a church, I'm not going to repeat what he said to me then, but it was 'fork you," it was four letters with F C and K. To my face. And then he walked off."
"So is this the best my community can get? Is this the best person to run our hospital?"
Community member Doug Shannon responds to threats made against Dr. Andrade by Don Smithburg.
"I don't like having my doc be threatened. I'm going to be real blunt since that's the way I operate. That pisses me off."
"When I went to that hospital, Dr. Lauber and some of these other doctors were there, and I got my second hernia surgery, it was a ten out of a ten."
"When my son got sick with COVID and then became diabetic, he was taken care of at that hospital with Dr. Lauber and the other doctors there, and it was a ten out of a ten."
"It's not right. All you do is help me, help my family." "I'm tired of the community and city leadership ducking and dodging responsibility and taking care of their buddies, and not standing up for what is right. Which is proper patient care and treating EVERYBODY irregardless of economic status and ethnicity as being as good as they are.”
"It's not right. All you do is help me, help my family."