Friday's H.I.T.S. post on the Plainfield Health Center evoked a serious catalog of concerns -- and they seem to come mainly from employees -- which deserve to be grouped together in a post and should be enough to awaken the community and the Health Center's board:
Whatever the merits of the comments, the Board should be concerned that there are perceptions among the staff -- and seeping into the community -- about cronyism, mismanagement and waste.
- Does management keep the Center's board in the dark with fudged numbers?
- Questions about the COO's qualifications for the job
- Questions about the HR director's qualifications -- and an allegation the job was never publicly posted
- Putting staff to work on marketing and event matters that are not their assignment
- Arbitrary and capricious management
- Tensions over apportionment of jobs and services between African-Americans and Latinos
- Morale 'at an all-time low'
As the old saying goes, 'Caesar's wife should be above reproach.'**
**Plutarch, telling the story of Caesar's divorce of his third wife, Pompeia, cites as the ruler's justification: quia suam uxorem etiam suspiciore vacare vellet. See more here, or here if you want the full monte (go to p453 et seq.)
-- Dan Damon
Keywords: Plainfield Health Center, management
1 comment:
Concerning the HIV department we have had several complaints from staff at Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center that our women are coming in for deliveries and have not been tested for HIV. The HIV department had been advised that these complaints were coming in and that they were not in compliance. The present CEO (how she got the job we'll never know) as usual did nothing to rectify the situation. Monies from grants we receive from the State and Federal government covers the testing of pregnant women. Ms. Hernandez who is the Director of Ancillary Services and her staff take long lunches leave early and are able to get away with murder while everyone else has to punch in and be accountable for their time.
It is about time that this information is getting out to the public the things that go on here are no different than UMDNJ just on a smaller scale.
The morale is low because we do not understand why Eugene Baucum was allowed back as an employee he was in prison and he was fired from the health center (asked to resign) when information about him appeared in the newspaper. He is in charge of Marketing and Development as a Development person people who know about his background will not be quick to give donations to the health center and he has no experience whatsoever in the field of development. The new director of marketing has constantly complained about not knowing what she is doing she was hired for marketing but he has her putting on a gala -- the staff has never had to be a part of planning, soliciting ads etc. because we had people here who knew what they were doing. We have had to almost use blackmail to ask people for ads telling them we give you business and we expect an ad for the journal from you. This is absolutely wrong.
We had a foundation here it was dismantled and the director, Andrea West, was let go. She at least raised money and from reports it was around 2 million dollars. while we found her to be a big mouth and a trouble maker it still does not explain why she was replaced with a person who was in charge of maintence before he left.
While Mrs. Miller brought the health center forward she was a cold fish not even speaking to employees this was her personal kingdom and we were not treated right. The union was voted in to protect us from her assistant, Althea Johnson, we had no formal HR department at the time and Ms. Johnson ran things that if people had filed lawsuits would have put the health center in a very bad light.
Just like UMDNJ we need someone to come in and take a look at what's going on people on the state and federal level. Let them talk to the staff and assure them we won't loose our jobs if we talk.
We also had an employee who still works here who was fired by her supervisor for opening another employees paycheck but Mrs. Miller had him rehire her and make her a supervisor she is a personal friend and previously worked for Mrs. Miller's husband. this person was running a business loaning money to staff at very high interest rates and renting rooms in her rooming house. The staff here does not make a lot of money and sometimes needed a loan to get by at the rates she was charging it was definitely loansharking. She has been doing this for at least 12 years or more. We are thinking about asking the newspapers to do an investigation. Thank you for your interest in seeing fairness being done in the City of Plainfield. We got together to discuss what is happening at the health center where our concern should be the health of the poor and uninsured so we can function without being stressed out. There are others who will be writing you so we can maybe get someone in here to run this place the right way.
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