Richard Baker wrote:Family health care and all the bullshit does not replace EMERGENCY CARE for a city of 56,000 souls. Never in the history of Lakewood has so few, screwed so many. Incidentally, Jim;, if I recall you were on the advisory board of Cleveland Clinic Lakewood, were you not? When I attempt to publish data from the City of Lakewood about the the contract between Cleveland Clinic and the City of Lakewood it was not published. Jim, would you care to enlightening us on the fact that you were used?
Cleveland Clinic strategy has been and always was to rid themselves of the Lakewood hospital competition using mayors with vested interest and dumber than a box of rocks councilmen. Now a city of 56,000 people are without local valid emergency care hospital or doctors care. Incidentally, when I took my eleven year old son to the Lakewood Hospital emergency care system because he had a compound fracture of his left wrist, they gave us a number 76 in line waiting for examination. I took him to Saint Johns where children are a priority and he was seen immediately and treated.
Do I care if your a Lakewood citizen that dies on the ambulance ride to another Cleveland Clinic hospital that is out of town, no. However, God forbid those if my grandchildren don't receive the immediate care required to save their lives.
Richard
I was on the Community board which is basically a feel good group of people regularly invited to give money to the Clinic. With the exception of Health Care bills I have not given one penny to the Clinic. Also after the first meeting of the Community Board the fluffiness of the entire thing bothered me and I never attended another meeting and had my name removed from the list.
Any attempt to publish documents in the print Observer were handled by the Editorial staff not me. For over a decade I never read the paper until it was printed. This was done by me just to make sure I never tried to exert any control over the publishing process. Recently I have taken over layout of the print version but generally I work from lists provided by the editorial staff.
As far as being used by the Clinic, I have to say straight up they saved my life, and for that I am a huge Clinic fan. Metro and the Essi also saved my life and I feel the same way about them. At one point the Cleveland Clinic was the Observer Project largest advertiser. They never asked for nor would they have been given any real benefits such as killing stories or cover-ups. They and all advertisers have always understood that from day one of their association with the Observer. They buy space in the paper, nothing else. When I was given many clues as to the City renegotiation the Clinic contract the only thing that held me back from reporting it for nearly 5 months was checking facts as it was a major story that affected many lives. I do wish I broke it in September 2014 when I got the first wind of it. One of the things holding the announcement back was me discussing it with Mayor Summers who for 2.5 months said he was looking into it. All lies. When I realized he was lying and covering it up I broke the story. Even with us and many Observers attacking the Clinic they continued their ads asking for nothing special.
That said, and through this entire debacle the Cleveland Clinic has never lied nor misrepresented one thing to me. Every question I have asked them they have answered usually immediately and I cannot remember them beating around the bush. I would ask you to recall that until February 15 Mayor Summers said the Hospital was not closing. At that meeting he started off first and said the hospital was not closing. Toby Cosgrove got up later at the meeting and said point blank, the Hospital would close on June 16. Even after that, Mayor Summers tried to say, it is not really closing just changing it's form. I have friends on LHF, LHA, at the Cleveland Clinic, none of them lied to me. The only group that played me and the Lakewood Observer was City Hall and the elected officials that were our fiduciary agents on LHA. To this day City Hall hides documents, fights the public's right to know in court and is dedicated to covering up and lying about the process.
Could I have done it better, you bet, and I regret it to this day.
Cleveland Clinic's strategy was not to rid themselves of Lakewood Hospital, I would say far from it. It was City Hall that asked them to renegotiate the contract. It was our elected officials working as our fiduciary agents that allowed and even expedited the removal of services from Lakewood Hospital to other hospitals. With that said, I will admit the Lakewood Hospital was bound to close or change in dimension. Some of this is from Mayor Cain's refusal to give them the entire hospital, which set the growth of Fairview Hospital in motion. I would say another key moment was when Lakewood Hospital wanted to acquire more land and homes for growth they were fought by residents and backed off the plan for growth. The close proximity with the cost and specialization of medicine certainly put a target on Lakewood Hospitals back. BUT at the same time the Clinic was being paid $25 million a year off the top to run it, and was basically guaranteed it would not lose money running it. Which made Lakewood Hospital a nice little cash cow. Throw in 51,000 residents that would all need a hospital sooner and later it became a nice little gem in their pocket.
I will never forget when an ex-Clinic attorney came up to me at Crop Bistro while I was having lunch. He was at the next table speaking with longtime friend Jimmy Rokakis he turned to me and said, "How did Lakewood screw up that sweet deal with the Clinic? Yhey would have honored that contract, they do not want to alienate the residents." It struck me as odd and I had not even announced the closing yet. Then when I looked at the LOI I realized it was the city asking them to leave the building, not the Clinic asking to leave. More to the point Mayor Summers asked them to answer the first RFP and they refused as they already had a contract with Lakewood they were happy with. Then the Mayor issued another RFP. It was then I started to smell a rat, and the rats became painfully obvious the more I dug and the more other legal minds dug into the whole debacle.
Richard, while you and I have different backgrounds, you understand business. Look at the numbers, all the Clinic received was a far payout to leave a contract they had no interest in leaving. City Hall desperate to grab the non-profits funds threw in a bunch of sugar. Land the Clinic would own, residents paying building their new building, exclusives seats on boards, all to get the Clinic to drop their current contract. The Clinic's move was a straight business deal. City Hall were the sluts willing to do anything to get control of LHF and this other paltry sums over 10 years.
The Cleveland Clinic is the easy target to blame, everyone hates big medicine, but our enemy in this whole nightmare has been City Hall. It was City Hall that worked for over ten years in secret to shut it down, grab the assets, and build their dream strip mall while controlling all the funds. Why I believe they were hoping to cover up all the mistakes they had made for years. Your neighbors sold us out for some magic beans, and more bullshit promises of better everything.
To this day the only group that has lied, mislead, quoted bullshit numbers, used intimidation was City Hall.
Read the documents, read the findings, look at the court cases.
As for your kid and their broken arm. Two X-ray machines, one Cat Scan and the promise that most simple breaks and day to day issues can be handled at the Family Health Center. There are not overnight rooms, none so overnight stuff will be moved to other hospitals. That was fine with City Hall and signed off on by City Hall. Even when City Hall was offered more money and services by the Clinic the Mayor said no, give it to the private foundations, not the community.
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