AMERICAN SLAVES
Happiness hides beyond these gates --
Silver spoons and China plates.
But here we breed and slave and rot
And thank our oppressors for the little we’ve got.
Of those who dare to take a chance
By running away to wealth and romance
In far off parts of these United States,
A few of them make it; the rest do not.
The majority blind ourselves to our fates,
Play deaf, dumb and numb to what circumstance
Enslaves us to our pitiful plot.
We all are slaves to our family ties
And to whatever totems our parents baptize
Us to at birth. (This chain is mine!!!)
These are the slave shacks to which we resign
Our days with our cousins and uncles and aunts.
These are the factories that sprout up like plants,
Like tobacco, like cotton. None dares criticize
The poisons they make here and on which we shall dine.
Our sadistic oppressors we all idolize,
Because we need their bucks to finance
This earthly hell, this grim design.
These are our children and these are their fires
Which we sell for their heat to the sinister choirs
Of extinguishing gangster whose ways and means
Are more perverse than the kings and queens
Who once held their serfs in a feudal trance,
From Charlemagne onward — in England, in France,
In Russia, etc.-- while the clergy, with pliers,
Ripped out their genitals, backbones and spleens,-
Then played them like puppets from invisible wires.
These are our children. See them dance.
See them play out their pitiful scenes.
These are our hands. We sell them in pairs.
Hands that sweat while the bossperson swears
And threatens. Hands that would become wings.
Hands we fold in praise to kings
And shareholders whose childish extravagance
Feeds on our foolish intolerance
Toward new ideas which could banish our cares,
Hands we shackle with wedding rings,
Hands that get slapped if any dares
To point a finger at the arrogance
Of our proud oppressor, who mockingly sings.
We’re American slaves, ravaged and torn
From four hundred years of shucking corn
And parking cars. The needle glides
Toward the breaking point. The future rides
On our backs like Rajas on their elephants.
But this is of little relevance.
For it’s liberation and change we scorn.
Beyond these gates, happiness hides.
But don’t disturb our stupor to warn us
That we are but sleepwalkers, ghosts at a seance,
Oblivious to which way the avalanche slides.
Words and Music by Galen Green c 1989
%%%%%%%
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Scene One of Our Peasant Cantata
Open Letter To B-LMC HR Director Dennis Johnson
From Galen Green; August 2005
Dear Dennis,
Here’s the brief recounting of the events immediately leading up to my firing on the afternoon of Friday, February 25th that you requested.
Please allow me to preface my narrative by reminding you that, during my nine years of delivering an excellent work product as an armed security officer for Health Midwest and HCA, I've been involved in between 50 and 100 situations very similar to the one which took place on the 2/25, and have always received grateful "'at-a-boy's" from my fellow officers, as well as from other hospital staff. Moreover, there is every reason to believe that I'd have received a similar positive response for my performance on 2/25 from any of my colleagues other than Supvr. Ludwig. But in the lawless atmosphere which has been allowed to descend upon B-LMC's security department since Supvr. Ludwig's arrival on January 5th of last year -- whereby black is white, up is down and wrong is right -- it was nothing short of inevitable that Galen Green would be slandered, scapegoated and fired for once again doing an excellent job of following HCA and B-LMC departmental policies and procedures to the letter.
At around 9:30 on the morning of February 25th of this year, our department was called to the Emergency Department to remove a 30-ish B/M (approx. 6'2"; 180 lbs.) who'd been treated and discharged but who refused to leave. At the time, I was patrolling the parking lots in one of our department's two vehicles, but indicated on the radio that I was enroute to the E.D. to assist in removing this recalcitrant individual. Supvr. Ludwig responded on the radio with an abrasive comment regarding my offer for back-up, a comment overheard by and later remarked upon by Rob in Maintenance (whom I strongly urge you to interview), as well as by the PBX operator.
Be that as it may, I remained outside on patrol, per Supvr. Ludwig’s specific instructions, while Officers Ludwig, Ciston and Fennix removed the party in question from the E.D. and escorted him to the bus stop on Rockhill, about 35 steps from the hospital's lobby entrance. Supvr. Ludwig then informed me by radio that the subject was at the bus stop and instructed me to make sure that he did not sneak back into the building.
Having been through similar scenarios, I posted myself in the same location where any and all of the other experienced officers in our department would in similar situations -- in the only spot from which an officer can monitor a subject's movements in any direction from the Rockhill bus stop. After the subject had paced back and forth in a broad swath in front of the bus stop for perhaps seven or eight minutes, he began to walk toward the hospital's lobby entrance, at which point I (who'd been watching him like a hawk, as our department's CCTV videotape clearly would have recorded, had Supvr. Ludwig or anyone else in authority honestly cared to check) followed standard procedure by getting into the patrol vehicle, starting it up and driving as quickly as common sense (vis-a-vis the many pedestrians in the visitors' parking lot) would allow, toward the hospital entrance, to head him off.
When I pulled into the circle drive and rolled down the car window to confront the subject to inform him that he was not going to be allowed back into the building, there was no available space to pull the patrol vehicle out of the heavy traffic flow, so that I could get out of the car to confront him physically. When he asserted that he was, indeed, going to re-enter the hospital (contrary to what he'd been instructed earlier and again by me), I immediately radioed for officer back-up - which is precisely what departmental policy calls for, in such situations.
(Big flashing neon parenthetical footnote, Dennis: It is specifically against departmental policy (and a firing offense if violated) for any officer to physically confront a subject alone (especially when a strong likelihood exists that said confrontation could turn violent – and even more especially when innocent bystanders are involved, as they most certainly were in this instance), if calling for officer back-up obtains as a viable alternative.
To quickly recap: I was watching the subject like a hawk as he paced at the bus stop. The very second he showed signs of walking back toward the hospital, I drove as quickly as was safely possible to the circle drive entrance to head him off. Nine years of armed hospital security experience has taught me that 9 times out of 10, my confronting him as I did (the only way that was available to me at that moment, given the traffic jam in the circle drive that morning) proves sufficient to turn these types of troublemakers around and get them headed off property. But because it had become apparent to me that this individual was going to take advantage of the 10 seconds it was going to take me to drive the patrol vehicle forward to the last curbside parking slot and park it before I could chase him down, I did what every single one of my experienced colleagues would have done in this situation, (And I strongly encourage our panel to interview at least a dozen of them, if any doubt lingers in anyone's mind as to the validity of my position here), and that was to radio for back-up, park the car as quickly as was humanly possible and to run after him.
So . . . just as I was exiting the patrol vehicle and running to catch up with the subject who was entering the hospital lobby through the sliding glass doors, Supvr. Ludwig came running up the side stairs which lead from the circle drive to the ambulance bay -- just in time to pass through the lobby entrance next to me. By this time, the subject had made his way approximately 10 feet into the lobby, when Supvr. Ludwig and I both got in front of him to block his path. I began to address the subject, but Supvr. Ludwig broke in and told him essentially what I was about to tell him -- which is exactly the same thing we in security always tell these people whom we've thrown out of the building. And that is, of course, that they can either turn around and leave immediately or be arrested, cuffed and sent to jail for trespassing. Under much verbal protest, the subject then turned around and allowed Supvr. Ludwig and myself to escort him back out onto the circle drive and in the direction of the bus stop. Supvr. Ludwig then instructed me to move the patrol vehicle out of the circle drive and to meet him down in the dispatch office, which I did.
Perhaps five minutes later, Supvr. Ludwig came charging into dispatch and commenced throwing a temper tantrum like a two-year-old. (I swear, I am not exaggerating here, Dennis!) I'm not even going to attempt to recount for you his exact words, since it's now been nearly six months ago, and since whatever it was he was screaming was completely overshadowed by the shamefully immature nature of his behavior. Myself, having approximately twice as many years of hospital security experience as this out-of-control person making such a fool of himself in my presence (bearing in mind that Ludwig is 20 years younger than me -- young enough to be my son -- and with less than a third of my formal education and a tenth of my corporate experience) heard him out, hoping that he'd have the good sense to calm down and reflect on this outburst of embarrassingly unprofessional childishness.
Even though you may or may not feel that I've taken too many words to recount for you what I consider to have been the reasonably shortest version of this 15-minute series of fateful events on the morning of 2/25/05, let me say in my own defense that my experience thusfar with telling this story to others, over the past six months, has been consistently complicated by my listeners' desire for contextualization. In recounting it for you, therefore, I've done my best to balance a bare-bones narrative with a providing of at least minimal context. The absolutely shortest version would simply have been to say that I was fraudulently fired for doing an excellent job of following policy, but I take it that you were looking for a bit more detail and . . . well, context . . . than that.
I'm not sure of at what point in time you'd like for me to choose to end my account, but end it I will -- at least for the time being. After Supvr. Ludwig threw his outrageously unprofessional tantrum at me in the security dispatch office, he stormed out, and I "went back into service," as we security officers put it.
And, since I knew that I had, indeed, followed policy and performed my duties in this instance in precisely the same way Security Officers Harry Patek, Bob Smith, Neil Stack, Jean Dunham, James Bolton, Dave Eubank, Sonia Fennix, Ray Camerillo, Brian Deaver, Wade Young or Charlie Wagner, for instance, would have done, had they been in my shoes, I thought nothing more of what had just happened -- except for the realization that Supvr. Ludwig's tantrum had obviously been born out of his own lack of experience with such situations on the B-LMC campus and his consequent lack of realistic expectations as to how these situations invariably "go down." (And, yes, I realize that, in saying what I've just said, I'm opening "a whole 'nother can of worms." But I've done so to contextualize, and with the understanding that any discussion of such matters can wait for another day.)
It therefore came to me as a complete surprise (a bolt from out of the blue, an ambush) when, at the end of the shift on 2/25/05, when I was routinely radioing Sonia Fennix with the ending milage on the patrol vehicle I'd been driving, Sonia informed me that I was to "meet Bill in H.R." I think you know the rest. If you don't, please let me know, and I'll fill you in on the actual "conversation" surrounding my firing. As I'm inferring that you already know, it took place in Sue Gilland's office, and the parties present were Corporate Security Director Jim Gnefkow, Campus Supervisor Bill Ludwig, Sue and myself.
I hope that the narrative account I've provided here has not been too terribly far afield from what you'd requested. When I was speaking by phone with one of the security officers at B-LMC this past weekend about an entirely unrelated matter and the subject came up of your having asked me to recount this 15-minute series of events for you (and for the record), the officer with whom I happened to be conversing piped up without my prompting and repeated what I'd been told many times before: "Galen! Everybody in the department knows that the only reason Bill put you on the dayshift was so that he could set you up to be fired!"
Sincerely,
Galen Green
(816) 807-4957
KCMO
August 2005
Laying the Groundwork for a Future Lawsuit
Statement to Peer Review Panel
Preface
"By integrating compliance efforts and deploying the care competence of human resources in multiple corporate divisions, companies reap efficiencies that help keep regulations from dragging
them into red ink.
-- John Rossheim in "Human Resources Is Tapped to Address New
Compliance Complexities" from Workforce Management, July 2004: p.74.
Introduction
Information has become the lifeblood of every 21st century corporation. This is especially true of a busy urban hospital such Baptist-Lutheran Medical Center. The orderly flow of accurate information constitutes a network essential to every hospital's survival, and when that informational network begins to break down, the hospital's very survival becomes threatened. Thus it is that when the flow of information concerning something as seemingly trivial as the quality of a hospital security officer's work product becomes tainted by the viruses of slander, cultural prejudice, or managerial negligence, the resultant breakdown in the orderly flow of accurate information can become like the proverbial nail in the metaphorical horse's shoe, "for want of which" (as the saying goes), the horse, the rider, the cavalry, and finally the battle are lost, in an ineluctable chain of causation.
And that is the short version of how it is that this ad hoc Peer Review Panel is being convened and why it is that the work of this panel -- and, therefore, of each of you, as its constituent members -- is so vital to the health and survival of this hospital family to whose mission we've all devoted so much of our life energy.
Harassment Reported to Ethics & Compliance Officer
At around 4:30 on the afternoon of Friday, October 22nd of last year, Chief Operations Officer
Brian Lidiak summoned Officer James Bolton and myself to his office. Evidently, a recently
terminated security officer named Brian Deaver had filed a formal complaint through HCA’s
Ethics & Compliance Hotline (1-800-455-1996), charging B-LMC’s campus security supervisor
Bill Ludwig with racism and harassment, and had named James and myself as having been
victims of Supvr. Ludwig’s abuse. Acting in his then-capacity as B-LMC’s Ethics & Compliance
Officer, Mr. Lidiak indicated to us that he was investigating these serious allegations,
which had been passed along to him by the E & C people at corporate headquarters in Nashville
James told Mr. Lidiak that he did not feel that he'd been the target of Supvr. Ludwig's racism, while I, on the other hand, made it abundantly clear that I most certainly had been the frequent target of a persistent pattern of harassment by Supvr. Ludwig over the past several months. For the next half hour or so, I sat with Mr. Lidiak in his office, outlining for him some of the specifics of Supvr. Ludwig's harassment of me and answering his questions about the background of this pattern of harassment, as well as about Supvr. Ludwig's likely motives, and about a closely related overall pattern of corruption within HCA-Midwest's security department, including slander, falsification of documents and a highly counterproductive cronyism which constituted a clear
violation of both the letter and the spirit of HCA policy.
In response to my harassment complaint, Mr. Lidiak assured me that he would see to it that the problem was addressed and corrected immediately. He urged me in the strongest possible language to bring any future E & C issues directly to him, rather than to get Nashville involved
again in the airing of B-LMC’s dirty laundry.
Important Note
And as of this writing, I have honored Mr. Lidiak's request by not, as yet, taking this matter outside of our BLMC family. I still believe in B-LMC's mission and will continue to support it with all my heart and energy, no matter what the outcome of the problem-solving process in which we
now find ourselves at work.
Request for Copies from My B-LMC H.R. File
In an effort to substantiate the harassment complaint I had made to B-LMC's E & C Officer in late October of last year, I sent a memo via company e-mail to B-LMC's HR Director Dennis Johnson in November of last year, requesting photocopies of several key documents in my HR file, most notably my 2002 and 2003 Annual Evaluations, both of which contain significant false statements concerning my job performance, slandering me by insinuating that I had delivered a less-than-excellent work product while assigned to the two Health Midwest (now HCA-Midwest) facilities in Johnson County, Kansas. Director Johnson e-mailed back to me that HCA policy placed thus and such guidelines around any employee copying parts of his or her personnel file, and we were still working out the details of that process at the time of my wrongful termination on February 25th of this year
Wrongful Termination
At around 2:45 on the afternoon of February 25th of this year, Supvr. Ludwig's yearlong persistent pattern of harassment reached its zenith with his (in collusion with Corporate Security Director Jim Gnefkow) wrongfully terminating me for no cause other than my following HCA and departmental policy. Details of the events immediately leading up to my wrongful termination may be found in the attached narrative account, prepared at the request of HR Director Johnson, which I have condensed and edited for the purpose of this presentation and which is intended to be read prior to my visual presentation to your panel of ten (10) color snapshots of the north side of the hospital campus, illustrating the sequence of events recounted in the attached narrative.
B-LMC’s Problem-Solving Process
Sitting in Sue Gilland's office within the HR suite, with Ms. Gilland, Director Gnefkow and Supervisor Ludwig, on the afternoon of 02/25/05, and having just been informed by Director Gnefkow that I was going to be terminated for (in essence) following policy, the first words out of my mouth were to Ms. Gilland. Pointing to Director Gnefkow and Supvr. Ludwig, I said to Ms. Gilland: "I thought Brian Lidiak was going to deal with these guys." Thus began the problem-solving process which has culminated in the convening of your panel and my composing this outline of events to be presented to you panel at least a few days prior to my meeting with you on the afternoon of September 20th to answer your questions. Ms. Gilland gave me the necessary forms for filing a formal grievance and asked that I return them to HR no later than March 7th,
which I did.
Falling Through the Cracks
That was six (6) months ago. I personally handed the attached "Problem-Solving Form" to Director Johnson in HR on Monday, March 7th. I'm drafting this outline for your panel on the Wednesday after Labor Day, September 7th. How it's been that so much time has elapsed before we reached this stage of the hospital's problem-solving process is anybody's guess. I'm hoping that the panel will take note of the fact that I myself have made every attempt to keep fingerpointing to an absolute minimum throughout this process and throughout this document. It would seem that Director Johnson described the situation most succinctly when he recently commented to me that my case had simply fallen through the cracks.
My April 14th Meeting with Mr. Lidiak
Sometime around the end of March (of this year), I received a call from Director Johnson to set up an appointment with Mr. Lidiak, even though the job of Ethics & Compliance Officer had, by then, passed into other hands. Nonetheless, on the afternoon of April 14th, I met with Mr. Lidiak in his office for perhaps an hour. He had me describe for him briefly my version of how it was that I'd been wrongfully terminated, approximately six weeks earlier, and what specific remedy I
deemed to be appropriate at that juncture.
The short version of my response to him regarding a remedy was, in addition to the remedy I'd proposed in my March 7th "Problem-Solving Form" (attached), that I be compensated for that portion of my personal retirement savings I'd been forced to liquidate (with substantial tax consequences) in order to pay my bills over the previous six weeks. I also suggested (though I did NOT by any means demand) a full investigation of Supvr. Ludwig's and Director Gnefkow's transparent collusion in their campaign to set me up for wrongful termination. I suggested that any such fact-finding project might prudently begin by interviewing several of the hospital's other security officers with whom Supvr. Ludwig had shared his unbridled hatred of me and his almost sexually perverse desire to get me fired.
The Retaliation Issue
It was at this point in my April 14th conversation with Mr. Lidiak that the issue of retaliation came up. Ever since I transferred to B-LMC in the winter of 2003, it has been a frequently discussed article of faith among rank and file B-LMC security officers that any criticism whatsoever of our department managers -- including imagined criticism -- would be met, at some point down the line, with retaliation. When Mr. Lidiak stated to me that everything appeared to him to be quiet and running smoothly in B-LMC's security department, I explained to him that that was because of the constant threat of retaliation which hung over the head of every security officer. I was surprised that this bit of common knowledge came as a surprise to him.
Nevertheless, I reminded him that I had tried to make it clear to him during our conversation back on October 22nd that, ever since Jim Gnefkow had taken over as Corporate Security Director, the department had been run like a private little fiefdom within with Health Midwest's -- and then HCA Midwest's -- legitimate corporate structure, as though Tony Soprano and his lieutenants had managed to imbed their testosterone-poisoned brand of lawlessness inside an otherwise respectable enterprise. And I warned Mr. Lidiak, as I had done back in October, in phraseology reminiscent of John Dean's warning President Nixon that there was "a cancer on the Presidency," that Director Gnefkow and Supvr. Ludwig were the type of loose cannons who were likely to end up costing the company a bundle in perfectly avoidable litigation, damaging publicity and red ink.
Mr. Lidiak assured me that he’d be getting back to me.
May & June
Between April 14th and July 1st, I heard nothing from anyone at the managerial or administrative level at B-LMC. This, despite the fact that I had e-mailed Mr. Lidiak on May 11th, requesting an update on the status of the agenda he and I had discussed in April meeting, and had left two
separate voice messages in his mailbox (approximately two weeks apart), neither of which was returned. Finally, I e-mailed him again on June 12th, it having become apparent that desperate measures were in order if I were ever going to be afforded due process by the hospital's
administrative leadership.
In an undated e-mail which Mr. Lidiak seems to have sent on July 1st, he makes the claim that my firing had been justified. This, despite my having informed him back on October 22nd and again on April 14th that an integral component in Supvr. Ludwig's harassment of me was his intentional falsifying of documentation concerning my job performance, as well as his singling me out for selective enforcement of his own distorted interpretation of what even
constitutes departmental policy.
Selective Enforcement
This seems like as good as time as any to factor into our equation this fundamental tenet of corporate management: selective enforcement constitutes harassment.
Due Diligence
In an apparent effort to obfuscate around the fact that he himself had dropped the ball (i.e. had not exercise due diligence) in dealing with my harassment complaint against Supvr. Ludwig, Mr. Lidiak decided, per his July 1st e-mail to me, to conveniently pretend that my firing was "justified," even though my firing was clearly based upon distortions of key facts regarding my job performance, which he himself KNEW to be distortions. For whatever reasons, Mr. Lidiak has displayed a powerful aversion to confronting Supvr. Ludwig and holding him accountable for his
shamelessly unprofessional, inappropriate, noncompliant behavior toward me.
Who Will Watch The Watchers?
When we take this factor into account, it's little wonder that Supvr. Ludwig (in collusion with Director Gnefkow) felt at liberty to violate HCA policy, as well as my right to due process, by wrongfully terminating me for essentially no cause on February 25th. They did it because they
knew they could get away with it. (QED)
Meritocracy Requires That We Get The Facts Straight
Because of close family ties between B-LMC's Chief Executive Officer Darrell Moore and myself, which go all the way back to earliest childhood (His family lived five doors down from mine.), I had gone out of my way to leave Darrell out of the fundamentally political imbroglio I'd been dragged into by Director Gnefkow and Supvr. Ludwig. Even after I'd been wrongfully terminated on February 25th, I made it a point NOT to contact him, out of consideration for the delicacy of his position as the hospital's CEO. However, when I received Mr. Lidiak's e-mail on July 1st, I realized that the viable options available to me were either to "go outside our hospital family" by
phoning HCA’s Ethics & Compliance Hotline or appealing directly to Darrell.
At the moment, I feel that I made the right decision by firing off a confidential July 3rd e-mail to Darrell. I mention all of this here primarily by way of providing context to my quoting this brief excerpt from what needs must remain otherwise confidential:
The journey of our corporate family at Baptist-Lutheran Medical Center is at a crossroads. Only as a meritocracy can any corporate family survive in America in the 21st century. And as you know, the heart and soul of any meritocracy is getting the facts straight.
The Big “However”
However . . . since Jim Gnefkow took over as Corporate Director of HCA Midwest's security department, that department has descended into being less and less of a meritocracy, because any semblance of meritocracy would conflict with Director Gnefkow's agenda of running the department as his private little fiefdom. Never was this more the case than when he handpicked Supvr. Ludwig to operate as his representative at B-LMC by railroading the one officer, Galen Green, with the education, corporate experience, communications skills, people skills, maturity and dedication to one day replace him (Gnefkow), if and when the need should arise, and who thus posed an ever-present threat (at least in Gnefkow's own mind) to his job security, his comfortable niche, surrounded and protected by his stooges, his buffers.
In this type of hostile work environment, no employee is safe to simply go about the daily business of turning in an excellent work product. Because, if Galen Green isn't safe, then nobody is safe. We can “take that to the bank” (as the cliché goes).
A Quick Comparison & Contrast
I'm a 56-year-old former college English teacher with a master's degree (seven years of college) and a strong background in advertising, public relations, marketing, corporate communications and, of course, safety & security. Before I became the target of Supvr. Ludwig's and Director Gnefkow's harassment, culminating in my wrongful termination six months ago, I'd served as a hospital security officer for Health Midwest and then for HCA-Midwest for nine (9) years. [Hire date: April 24, 1996.] Altogether, I have eleven years of experience in the field of safety & security. The mendacious bigot who targeted me for harassment, lied about me behind my back, and then fired me in retaliation for my reporting him to the HCA Ethics & Compliance Officer, on the other hand, is young enough to be my son, has less than one fifth of my formal education and corporate experience, and only about half as much seniority with this company.
The Key Question to Ask Ourselves
The bottom line question that each of you on the Peer Review Panel must ask yourself is, in fact, a two-part question:
a) If Galen Green had not been at work on that fateful morning of Friday, February 25th, and Supvr. Ludwig had given a different officer the same instructions that he gave me, and had that officer followed his instructions in exactly the same way I did, would Supvr. Ludwig have fired that officer?
b) If Supvr. Ludwig had not been at work on that fateful morning, so that I'd have been working with a different supervisor who gave me the very same instructions that Supvr. Ludwig did, which I followed exactly as I did Supvr. Ludwig's instructions, would that supervisor have fired me?
If the answer to either of these questions is "yes," then my being fired was justified. If, on the other hand, the answer to either of these questions is "no," then my being fired was a case of wrongful termination.
Our Three Most Viable Options
And since the obvious answer to both of these questions is "no," meaning that I've been the victim of wrongful termination, then the only issue left for us to address is that of remedy. Please allow me to preface my own preferences concerning an appropriate remedy to this situation by saying that I wholeheartedly share the hospital administration's position that any resolution decided upon should:
> Represent a win-win outcome for all parties involved;
> Include my willingly signing a standard confidentiality agreement;
< Be made outside of the public view, especially that of the media.
OPTION #1: I love my job and have dedicated much of my working life to supporting the mission of our hospital system in serving the Greater Kansas City community. I'm particularly proud of how my role in the daily life of our hospital family has invited me to live out my personal values of showing respect for diversity, i.e. respect for people of all races, ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, life-circumstances and lifestyles. And clearly, the HCA hospital security officer of the future will need to be encouraged more and more to share these values.
My first preference, therefore, is to have my job back. This would include, of course, my signing the aforementioned confidentiality agreement, as well receiving full back pay for the six months or so that I've been off the job, along with reimbursement for lost vacation time (PTO) and return to my previous senority status.
The obvious fly in the ointment is that Supvr. Ludwig and Director Gnefkow would still pose as immediate a threat as they did six months ago, to my being allowed to go peacefully about doing my job with hindrance or harassment. The silver lining in this cloud is, of course, the fact that both federal regulations (including, but not limited to, Sarbanes-Oxley) and HCA corporate policy provide numerous mechanisms for addressing the case of "problem children" such as Director Gnefkow and Supvr. Ludwig.
OPTION #2: If, however, my being reinstated in B-LMC's security department (as I originally requested in the "Problem-Solving Form" I filed with HR, back on March 7th) is deemed by the hospital's administrators to be too awkward, too inconvenient or too cumbersome to prove feasible, then certainly viable alternatives abound. One such remedy which I would find acceptable would be for me to be rehired by the hospital to fill a position in some other department, such as public relations, administration or human resources, so long as my new position was appropriate to (commensurate with) my level of education and corporate experience. As I shared with you earlier in this statement, I hold an M.A. in English and have a strong background in advertising, public relations, marketing and corporate communications.
Moreover, my organizational and people skills are excellent.
Naturally, any such remedy would include the aforementioned full back pay for worktime lost, along with reimbursement for lost vacation time (PTO) and return to my previous seniority status.
OPTION #3: In the event that B-LMC administrators find that no such suitable position for me is available, either inside or outside of the security department, I would consider it an acceptable remedy to my wrongful termination (at this point in time, at least) to receive only the aforementioned six months back pay in a lump sum (approximately $12K), along with the salary I would have received for the remainder of the 2005 calendar year (also approximately $12K) as a severance package, in addition to the written guarantee of at least two glowing references from the B-LMC administration and human resources departments, so that I can get on with my life.
Bearing in mine that 56 is a fairly advanced age for a man such as myself to be trying to embark upon a new career path, I think you'll agree that such a modest cash settlement along with a pair of highly favorable recommendations to future prospective employers constitutes about as minimal an outlay of redress for a wrongful termination (at the age of 56, after nine years of dedicated service) as can be imagined in today's labor dynamic. And, once again, I would be more than happy to sign a standard confidentiality agreement as part of any such cash settlement.
Conclusion
I want to conclude this statement where I began it, by focusing upon the basic reality that information (i.e. the orderly flow of accurate information) is the lifeblood of every 21st century corporation, particularly one like Baptist-Lutheran Medical Center. It is my most fervent wish that the time and energy that I've taken to prepare this statement for your panel and that you've taken to study it will eventually prove to have reddened and enriched the lifeblood of our entire hospital family and of the vital mission we all share.
Thanks for your patient attention.
Sincerely,
Galen Green
(816-807-4957)
Kansas City, MO
Preface
"By integrating compliance efforts and deploying the care competence of human resources in multiple corporate divisions, companies reap efficiencies that help keep regulations from dragging
them into red ink.
-- John Rossheim in "Human Resources Is Tapped to Address New
Compliance Complexities" from Workforce Management, July 2004: p.74.
Introduction
Information has become the lifeblood of every 21st century corporation. This is especially true of a busy urban hospital such Baptist-Lutheran Medical Center. The orderly flow of accurate information constitutes a network essential to every hospital's survival, and when that informational network begins to break down, the hospital's very survival becomes threatened. Thus it is that when the flow of information concerning something as seemingly trivial as the quality of a hospital security officer's work product becomes tainted by the viruses of slander, cultural prejudice, or managerial negligence, the resultant breakdown in the orderly flow of accurate information can become like the proverbial nail in the metaphorical horse's shoe, "for want of which" (as the saying goes), the horse, the rider, the cavalry, and finally the battle are lost, in an ineluctable chain of causation.
And that is the short version of how it is that this ad hoc Peer Review Panel is being convened and why it is that the work of this panel -- and, therefore, of each of you, as its constituent members -- is so vital to the health and survival of this hospital family to whose mission we've all devoted so much of our life energy.
Harassment Reported to Ethics & Compliance Officer
At around 4:30 on the afternoon of Friday, October 22nd of last year, Chief Operations Officer
Brian Lidiak summoned Officer James Bolton and myself to his office. Evidently, a recently
terminated security officer named Brian Deaver had filed a formal complaint through HCA’s
Ethics & Compliance Hotline (1-800-455-1996), charging B-LMC’s campus security supervisor
Bill Ludwig with racism and harassment, and had named James and myself as having been
victims of Supvr. Ludwig’s abuse. Acting in his then-capacity as B-LMC’s Ethics & Compliance
Officer, Mr. Lidiak indicated to us that he was investigating these serious allegations,
which had been passed along to him by the E & C people at corporate headquarters in Nashville
James told Mr. Lidiak that he did not feel that he'd been the target of Supvr. Ludwig's racism, while I, on the other hand, made it abundantly clear that I most certainly had been the frequent target of a persistent pattern of harassment by Supvr. Ludwig over the past several months. For the next half hour or so, I sat with Mr. Lidiak in his office, outlining for him some of the specifics of Supvr. Ludwig's harassment of me and answering his questions about the background of this pattern of harassment, as well as about Supvr. Ludwig's likely motives, and about a closely related overall pattern of corruption within HCA-Midwest's security department, including slander, falsification of documents and a highly counterproductive cronyism which constituted a clear
violation of both the letter and the spirit of HCA policy.
In response to my harassment complaint, Mr. Lidiak assured me that he would see to it that the problem was addressed and corrected immediately. He urged me in the strongest possible language to bring any future E & C issues directly to him, rather than to get Nashville involved
again in the airing of B-LMC’s dirty laundry.
Important Note
And as of this writing, I have honored Mr. Lidiak's request by not, as yet, taking this matter outside of our BLMC family. I still believe in B-LMC's mission and will continue to support it with all my heart and energy, no matter what the outcome of the problem-solving process in which we
now find ourselves at work.
Request for Copies from My B-LMC H.R. File
In an effort to substantiate the harassment complaint I had made to B-LMC's E & C Officer in late October of last year, I sent a memo via company e-mail to B-LMC's HR Director Dennis Johnson in November of last year, requesting photocopies of several key documents in my HR file, most notably my 2002 and 2003 Annual Evaluations, both of which contain significant false statements concerning my job performance, slandering me by insinuating that I had delivered a less-than-excellent work product while assigned to the two Health Midwest (now HCA-Midwest) facilities in Johnson County, Kansas. Director Johnson e-mailed back to me that HCA policy placed thus and such guidelines around any employee copying parts of his or her personnel file, and we were still working out the details of that process at the time of my wrongful termination on February 25th of this year
Wrongful Termination
At around 2:45 on the afternoon of February 25th of this year, Supvr. Ludwig's yearlong persistent pattern of harassment reached its zenith with his (in collusion with Corporate Security Director Jim Gnefkow) wrongfully terminating me for no cause other than my following HCA and departmental policy. Details of the events immediately leading up to my wrongful termination may be found in the attached narrative account, prepared at the request of HR Director Johnson, which I have condensed and edited for the purpose of this presentation and which is intended to be read prior to my visual presentation to your panel of ten (10) color snapshots of the north side of the hospital campus, illustrating the sequence of events recounted in the attached narrative.
B-LMC’s Problem-Solving Process
Sitting in Sue Gilland's office within the HR suite, with Ms. Gilland, Director Gnefkow and Supervisor Ludwig, on the afternoon of 02/25/05, and having just been informed by Director Gnefkow that I was going to be terminated for (in essence) following policy, the first words out of my mouth were to Ms. Gilland. Pointing to Director Gnefkow and Supvr. Ludwig, I said to Ms. Gilland: "I thought Brian Lidiak was going to deal with these guys." Thus began the problem-solving process which has culminated in the convening of your panel and my composing this outline of events to be presented to you panel at least a few days prior to my meeting with you on the afternoon of September 20th to answer your questions. Ms. Gilland gave me the necessary forms for filing a formal grievance and asked that I return them to HR no later than March 7th,
which I did.
Falling Through the Cracks
That was six (6) months ago. I personally handed the attached "Problem-Solving Form" to Director Johnson in HR on Monday, March 7th. I'm drafting this outline for your panel on the Wednesday after Labor Day, September 7th. How it's been that so much time has elapsed before we reached this stage of the hospital's problem-solving process is anybody's guess. I'm hoping that the panel will take note of the fact that I myself have made every attempt to keep fingerpointing to an absolute minimum throughout this process and throughout this document. It would seem that Director Johnson described the situation most succinctly when he recently commented to me that my case had simply fallen through the cracks.
My April 14th Meeting with Mr. Lidiak
Sometime around the end of March (of this year), I received a call from Director Johnson to set up an appointment with Mr. Lidiak, even though the job of Ethics & Compliance Officer had, by then, passed into other hands. Nonetheless, on the afternoon of April 14th, I met with Mr. Lidiak in his office for perhaps an hour. He had me describe for him briefly my version of how it was that I'd been wrongfully terminated, approximately six weeks earlier, and what specific remedy I
deemed to be appropriate at that juncture.
The short version of my response to him regarding a remedy was, in addition to the remedy I'd proposed in my March 7th "Problem-Solving Form" (attached), that I be compensated for that portion of my personal retirement savings I'd been forced to liquidate (with substantial tax consequences) in order to pay my bills over the previous six weeks. I also suggested (though I did NOT by any means demand) a full investigation of Supvr. Ludwig's and Director Gnefkow's transparent collusion in their campaign to set me up for wrongful termination. I suggested that any such fact-finding project might prudently begin by interviewing several of the hospital's other security officers with whom Supvr. Ludwig had shared his unbridled hatred of me and his almost sexually perverse desire to get me fired.
The Retaliation Issue
It was at this point in my April 14th conversation with Mr. Lidiak that the issue of retaliation came up. Ever since I transferred to B-LMC in the winter of 2003, it has been a frequently discussed article of faith among rank and file B-LMC security officers that any criticism whatsoever of our department managers -- including imagined criticism -- would be met, at some point down the line, with retaliation. When Mr. Lidiak stated to me that everything appeared to him to be quiet and running smoothly in B-LMC's security department, I explained to him that that was because of the constant threat of retaliation which hung over the head of every security officer. I was surprised that this bit of common knowledge came as a surprise to him.
Nevertheless, I reminded him that I had tried to make it clear to him during our conversation back on October 22nd that, ever since Jim Gnefkow had taken over as Corporate Security Director, the department had been run like a private little fiefdom within with Health Midwest's -- and then HCA Midwest's -- legitimate corporate structure, as though Tony Soprano and his lieutenants had managed to imbed their testosterone-poisoned brand of lawlessness inside an otherwise respectable enterprise. And I warned Mr. Lidiak, as I had done back in October, in phraseology reminiscent of John Dean's warning President Nixon that there was "a cancer on the Presidency," that Director Gnefkow and Supvr. Ludwig were the type of loose cannons who were likely to end up costing the company a bundle in perfectly avoidable litigation, damaging publicity and red ink.
Mr. Lidiak assured me that he’d be getting back to me.
May & June
Between April 14th and July 1st, I heard nothing from anyone at the managerial or administrative level at B-LMC. This, despite the fact that I had e-mailed Mr. Lidiak on May 11th, requesting an update on the status of the agenda he and I had discussed in April meeting, and had left two
separate voice messages in his mailbox (approximately two weeks apart), neither of which was returned. Finally, I e-mailed him again on June 12th, it having become apparent that desperate measures were in order if I were ever going to be afforded due process by the hospital's
administrative leadership.
In an undated e-mail which Mr. Lidiak seems to have sent on July 1st, he makes the claim that my firing had been justified. This, despite my having informed him back on October 22nd and again on April 14th that an integral component in Supvr. Ludwig's harassment of me was his intentional falsifying of documentation concerning my job performance, as well as his singling me out for selective enforcement of his own distorted interpretation of what even
constitutes departmental policy.
Selective Enforcement
This seems like as good as time as any to factor into our equation this fundamental tenet of corporate management: selective enforcement constitutes harassment.
Due Diligence
In an apparent effort to obfuscate around the fact that he himself had dropped the ball (i.e. had not exercise due diligence) in dealing with my harassment complaint against Supvr. Ludwig, Mr. Lidiak decided, per his July 1st e-mail to me, to conveniently pretend that my firing was "justified," even though my firing was clearly based upon distortions of key facts regarding my job performance, which he himself KNEW to be distortions. For whatever reasons, Mr. Lidiak has displayed a powerful aversion to confronting Supvr. Ludwig and holding him accountable for his
shamelessly unprofessional, inappropriate, noncompliant behavior toward me.
Who Will Watch The Watchers?
When we take this factor into account, it's little wonder that Supvr. Ludwig (in collusion with Director Gnefkow) felt at liberty to violate HCA policy, as well as my right to due process, by wrongfully terminating me for essentially no cause on February 25th. They did it because they
knew they could get away with it. (QED)
Meritocracy Requires That We Get The Facts Straight
Because of close family ties between B-LMC's Chief Executive Officer Darrell Moore and myself, which go all the way back to earliest childhood (His family lived five doors down from mine.), I had gone out of my way to leave Darrell out of the fundamentally political imbroglio I'd been dragged into by Director Gnefkow and Supvr. Ludwig. Even after I'd been wrongfully terminated on February 25th, I made it a point NOT to contact him, out of consideration for the delicacy of his position as the hospital's CEO. However, when I received Mr. Lidiak's e-mail on July 1st, I realized that the viable options available to me were either to "go outside our hospital family" by
phoning HCA’s Ethics & Compliance Hotline or appealing directly to Darrell.
At the moment, I feel that I made the right decision by firing off a confidential July 3rd e-mail to Darrell. I mention all of this here primarily by way of providing context to my quoting this brief excerpt from what needs must remain otherwise confidential:
The journey of our corporate family at Baptist-Lutheran Medical Center is at a crossroads. Only as a meritocracy can any corporate family survive in America in the 21st century. And as you know, the heart and soul of any meritocracy is getting the facts straight.
The Big “However”
However . . . since Jim Gnefkow took over as Corporate Director of HCA Midwest's security department, that department has descended into being less and less of a meritocracy, because any semblance of meritocracy would conflict with Director Gnefkow's agenda of running the department as his private little fiefdom. Never was this more the case than when he handpicked Supvr. Ludwig to operate as his representative at B-LMC by railroading the one officer, Galen Green, with the education, corporate experience, communications skills, people skills, maturity and dedication to one day replace him (Gnefkow), if and when the need should arise, and who thus posed an ever-present threat (at least in Gnefkow's own mind) to his job security, his comfortable niche, surrounded and protected by his stooges, his buffers.
In this type of hostile work environment, no employee is safe to simply go about the daily business of turning in an excellent work product. Because, if Galen Green isn't safe, then nobody is safe. We can “take that to the bank” (as the cliché goes).
A Quick Comparison & Contrast
I'm a 56-year-old former college English teacher with a master's degree (seven years of college) and a strong background in advertising, public relations, marketing, corporate communications and, of course, safety & security. Before I became the target of Supvr. Ludwig's and Director Gnefkow's harassment, culminating in my wrongful termination six months ago, I'd served as a hospital security officer for Health Midwest and then for HCA-Midwest for nine (9) years. [Hire date: April 24, 1996.] Altogether, I have eleven years of experience in the field of safety & security. The mendacious bigot who targeted me for harassment, lied about me behind my back, and then fired me in retaliation for my reporting him to the HCA Ethics & Compliance Officer, on the other hand, is young enough to be my son, has less than one fifth of my formal education and corporate experience, and only about half as much seniority with this company.
The Key Question to Ask Ourselves
The bottom line question that each of you on the Peer Review Panel must ask yourself is, in fact, a two-part question:
a) If Galen Green had not been at work on that fateful morning of Friday, February 25th, and Supvr. Ludwig had given a different officer the same instructions that he gave me, and had that officer followed his instructions in exactly the same way I did, would Supvr. Ludwig have fired that officer?
b) If Supvr. Ludwig had not been at work on that fateful morning, so that I'd have been working with a different supervisor who gave me the very same instructions that Supvr. Ludwig did, which I followed exactly as I did Supvr. Ludwig's instructions, would that supervisor have fired me?
If the answer to either of these questions is "yes," then my being fired was justified. If, on the other hand, the answer to either of these questions is "no," then my being fired was a case of wrongful termination.
Our Three Most Viable Options
And since the obvious answer to both of these questions is "no," meaning that I've been the victim of wrongful termination, then the only issue left for us to address is that of remedy. Please allow me to preface my own preferences concerning an appropriate remedy to this situation by saying that I wholeheartedly share the hospital administration's position that any resolution decided upon should:
> Represent a win-win outcome for all parties involved;
> Include my willingly signing a standard confidentiality agreement;
< Be made outside of the public view, especially that of the media.
OPTION #1: I love my job and have dedicated much of my working life to supporting the mission of our hospital system in serving the Greater Kansas City community. I'm particularly proud of how my role in the daily life of our hospital family has invited me to live out my personal values of showing respect for diversity, i.e. respect for people of all races, ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, life-circumstances and lifestyles. And clearly, the HCA hospital security officer of the future will need to be encouraged more and more to share these values.
My first preference, therefore, is to have my job back. This would include, of course, my signing the aforementioned confidentiality agreement, as well receiving full back pay for the six months or so that I've been off the job, along with reimbursement for lost vacation time (PTO) and return to my previous senority status.
The obvious fly in the ointment is that Supvr. Ludwig and Director Gnefkow would still pose as immediate a threat as they did six months ago, to my being allowed to go peacefully about doing my job with hindrance or harassment. The silver lining in this cloud is, of course, the fact that both federal regulations (including, but not limited to, Sarbanes-Oxley) and HCA corporate policy provide numerous mechanisms for addressing the case of "problem children" such as Director Gnefkow and Supvr. Ludwig.
OPTION #2: If, however, my being reinstated in B-LMC's security department (as I originally requested in the "Problem-Solving Form" I filed with HR, back on March 7th) is deemed by the hospital's administrators to be too awkward, too inconvenient or too cumbersome to prove feasible, then certainly viable alternatives abound. One such remedy which I would find acceptable would be for me to be rehired by the hospital to fill a position in some other department, such as public relations, administration or human resources, so long as my new position was appropriate to (commensurate with) my level of education and corporate experience. As I shared with you earlier in this statement, I hold an M.A. in English and have a strong background in advertising, public relations, marketing and corporate communications.
Moreover, my organizational and people skills are excellent.
Naturally, any such remedy would include the aforementioned full back pay for worktime lost, along with reimbursement for lost vacation time (PTO) and return to my previous seniority status.
OPTION #3: In the event that B-LMC administrators find that no such suitable position for me is available, either inside or outside of the security department, I would consider it an acceptable remedy to my wrongful termination (at this point in time, at least) to receive only the aforementioned six months back pay in a lump sum (approximately $12K), along with the salary I would have received for the remainder of the 2005 calendar year (also approximately $12K) as a severance package, in addition to the written guarantee of at least two glowing references from the B-LMC administration and human resources departments, so that I can get on with my life.
Bearing in mine that 56 is a fairly advanced age for a man such as myself to be trying to embark upon a new career path, I think you'll agree that such a modest cash settlement along with a pair of highly favorable recommendations to future prospective employers constitutes about as minimal an outlay of redress for a wrongful termination (at the age of 56, after nine years of dedicated service) as can be imagined in today's labor dynamic. And, once again, I would be more than happy to sign a standard confidentiality agreement as part of any such cash settlement.
Conclusion
I want to conclude this statement where I began it, by focusing upon the basic reality that information (i.e. the orderly flow of accurate information) is the lifeblood of every 21st century corporation, particularly one like Baptist-Lutheran Medical Center. It is my most fervent wish that the time and energy that I've taken to prepare this statement for your panel and that you've taken to study it will eventually prove to have reddened and enriched the lifeblood of our entire hospital family and of the vital mission we all share.
Thanks for your patient attention.
Sincerely,
Galen Green
(816-807-4957)
September 14, 2005
Kansas City, MO
Luring the Monster into its own Trap
Galen Green
c/o Smith
8606 Chestnut Circle Apt. #3
Kansas City, MO 64131
November 1, 2005
CCI
Report #0511-CHA-10005
P. O. Box 561915
Charlotte, NC 28256
Dear Friends,
What follows here is a brief summary of the complaint I lodged with a very nice interviewer named “Anne” earlier today, when I phoned HCA’s Ethics & Compliance Hotline. The several pages of enclosed documentation here will hopefully serve to brief you on the background of my situation. Thank you in advance for your thoughtful attention to my case.
I’m writing to report a serious violation of HCA’s Ethics and Compliance policy. It took place at Baptist-Lutheran Medical Center here in Kansas City - actually in the administration office. Back on October 22nd of 2004, a little over a year ago, I reported a campaign of harassment, that had been committed against me by another hospital employee, to the hospital’s Ethics & Compliance Officer. His name was Brian Lidiak, and he was also the hospital’s new Chief Operations Officer, and he had been on the job for only a short time. The jist of my harassment complaint was that my department’s campus supervisor, who had also only been on the job for a short time, had been falsifying official departmental documents in order to single me out for completely phoney write-ups, in an obvious effort to set me up to be fired. As I was to find out later, this individual, whose name was Bill Ludwig, was also busy spreading rumors about me in an effort to sabotage my lengthy career with the hospital system, to besmirch my reputation, and thereby to undercut my effectiveness in performing my duties. (At that time, I had been an Officer in the Safety & Security Department for 8 ½ years. My hire date with Health Midwest was April of 1996.)
The short version of the complaint I’m lodging now is that the hospital’s Ethics & Compliance Officer assured me that he would take care of this problem and he did not. Instead, he let the employee who was harassing me know that I had lodged this harassment complaint against him, and this resulted in the harassment getting even worse, until on February 25th of this year, a little over 9 months ago, the supervisor against whom I had lodged the harassment complaint wrongfully terminated me, based entirely upon falsified documentation, just as I had warned the hospital’s Ethics and Compliance Officer would happen if he failed to intervene.
Had he exercised due diligence in putting a stop to the harassment that I’d reported to him back on October 22nd of last year, then this complaint would not be necessary. But he did not. And at the time of my initial complaint, he had all but begged me not to contact you if the harassment persisted, but he instead assured me that he would, in essence, protect me from retaliation from this guy who had developed this perverse fixation on me. And that’s the only reason that I have not called your HCA E&C Hotline until now - that is, because I kept being strung along with reassurances that the hospital’s administrators would see to it that I was afford due process and that I could count on a fair outcome, if only I would be patient and not air the hospital’s dirty laundry either by going to court or by contacting you. But their bogus notions of due process turned out to be hopelessly corrupted by a built-in set of conflicts of interest and by a subsequent lack of interest in getting to the truth in any kind of unbiased fact-finding process. In short, none of the hospital’s administrators was about to commit career suicide by criticizing, scrutinizing or condemning the obvious negligence of Brian Lidiak.
And that’s why I’m contacting you now. It’s my understanding that HCA’s E & C Hotline has been set up to assist employees who have been the victims of this type of on-the-job harassment and who have found their hospital’s administrators to be unwilling or unable to deal with the problem on an in-house basis. Since HCA’s acquisition of Health Midwest a few years ago, I’ve been very satisfied with their policies & procedures for resolving these types of problems - I mean that I’ve heard good things about the quality of responsiveness of this E & C Hotline - so that I have every confidence that your department will respond to my complaint aggressively and with utmost fairness and eagerness to get to the bottom of things.
Over the summer, I’ve put together a statement of the facts in this matter, including a more thorough narrative explanation of the events I’ve outlined for you here, along with my own modest proposal for arriving at a fair and equitable “win-win” resolution to this dilemma.
I’d like for it to get to the right person’s hands (in front of the right person’s eyes) ASAP. I’d also like to make sure that your department knows how best to reach me here in Kansas City. The quickest way to get back to me is by calling my cell phone voice mail. My mailbox has a 5-minute voice message capacity, and the turn-around time for my getting back to you will usually be almost instantaneous. Anyway, that number is: 816-807-4957. Also, I have two e-mail addresses, and it’s important that any e-mail department that you might send to the one address be simultaneously sent to the other. The first e-mail address where I can be reached is msmith2210@aol.com and the second one is mythoklast@mailstation.com . I also want to update my street address. I imagine that the address you have for me is still the one on Broadway. But I’d much prefer that all mail be sent to me c/o Smith at 8606 Chestnut Circle, Apt. #3; Kansas city, MO 64131.
I really appreciate your taking time to focus on this complaint I’m lodging against Brian Lidiak, who is, incidentally, now the former E & C Officer at Baptist-Lutheran Medical Center; although he is, to the best of my knowledge, still the hospital’s Chief Operations Officer.
I find it extremely unfortunate that it’s come to this. But the simple fact of the matter is that I was wrongfully terminated this past February because (and only because) Brian Lidiak failed to the do job which your department had assigned him to do last October. I had my job stolen from me because Brian Lidiak failed to do his job. That’s what it boils down to.
Once again, however, I’m now putting my faith in your department to see to it that things are made right and that I can soon have my job back - or that some equally fair and just resolution can be arrived at.
In the best of all possible worlds, it might make most sense for your department to send a trained team of fact-finders to Kansas City to take statements, and to report back to Nashville with their unbiased findings. Anyway, I’m sure that your department will address these issue in whatever way seems best to you. Thanks again for taking the time to listen. I hope to hear back from you soon.
Sincerely,
Galen Green
Report #0511-CHA-10005
Encl.
c/o Smith
8606 Chestnut Circle Apt. #3
Kansas City, MO 64131
November 1, 2005
CCI
Report #0511-CHA-10005
P. O. Box 561915
Charlotte, NC 28256
Dear Friends,
What follows here is a brief summary of the complaint I lodged with a very nice interviewer named “Anne” earlier today, when I phoned HCA’s Ethics & Compliance Hotline. The several pages of enclosed documentation here will hopefully serve to brief you on the background of my situation. Thank you in advance for your thoughtful attention to my case.
I’m writing to report a serious violation of HCA’s Ethics and Compliance policy. It took place at Baptist-Lutheran Medical Center here in Kansas City - actually in the administration office. Back on October 22nd of 2004, a little over a year ago, I reported a campaign of harassment, that had been committed against me by another hospital employee, to the hospital’s Ethics & Compliance Officer. His name was Brian Lidiak, and he was also the hospital’s new Chief Operations Officer, and he had been on the job for only a short time. The jist of my harassment complaint was that my department’s campus supervisor, who had also only been on the job for a short time, had been falsifying official departmental documents in order to single me out for completely phoney write-ups, in an obvious effort to set me up to be fired. As I was to find out later, this individual, whose name was Bill Ludwig, was also busy spreading rumors about me in an effort to sabotage my lengthy career with the hospital system, to besmirch my reputation, and thereby to undercut my effectiveness in performing my duties. (At that time, I had been an Officer in the Safety & Security Department for 8 ½ years. My hire date with Health Midwest was April of 1996.)
The short version of the complaint I’m lodging now is that the hospital’s Ethics & Compliance Officer assured me that he would take care of this problem and he did not. Instead, he let the employee who was harassing me know that I had lodged this harassment complaint against him, and this resulted in the harassment getting even worse, until on February 25th of this year, a little over 9 months ago, the supervisor against whom I had lodged the harassment complaint wrongfully terminated me, based entirely upon falsified documentation, just as I had warned the hospital’s Ethics and Compliance Officer would happen if he failed to intervene.
Had he exercised due diligence in putting a stop to the harassment that I’d reported to him back on October 22nd of last year, then this complaint would not be necessary. But he did not. And at the time of my initial complaint, he had all but begged me not to contact you if the harassment persisted, but he instead assured me that he would, in essence, protect me from retaliation from this guy who had developed this perverse fixation on me. And that’s the only reason that I have not called your HCA E&C Hotline until now - that is, because I kept being strung along with reassurances that the hospital’s administrators would see to it that I was afford due process and that I could count on a fair outcome, if only I would be patient and not air the hospital’s dirty laundry either by going to court or by contacting you. But their bogus notions of due process turned out to be hopelessly corrupted by a built-in set of conflicts of interest and by a subsequent lack of interest in getting to the truth in any kind of unbiased fact-finding process. In short, none of the hospital’s administrators was about to commit career suicide by criticizing, scrutinizing or condemning the obvious negligence of Brian Lidiak.
And that’s why I’m contacting you now. It’s my understanding that HCA’s E & C Hotline has been set up to assist employees who have been the victims of this type of on-the-job harassment and who have found their hospital’s administrators to be unwilling or unable to deal with the problem on an in-house basis. Since HCA’s acquisition of Health Midwest a few years ago, I’ve been very satisfied with their policies & procedures for resolving these types of problems - I mean that I’ve heard good things about the quality of responsiveness of this E & C Hotline - so that I have every confidence that your department will respond to my complaint aggressively and with utmost fairness and eagerness to get to the bottom of things.
Over the summer, I’ve put together a statement of the facts in this matter, including a more thorough narrative explanation of the events I’ve outlined for you here, along with my own modest proposal for arriving at a fair and equitable “win-win” resolution to this dilemma.
I’d like for it to get to the right person’s hands (in front of the right person’s eyes) ASAP. I’d also like to make sure that your department knows how best to reach me here in Kansas City. The quickest way to get back to me is by calling my cell phone voice mail. My mailbox has a 5-minute voice message capacity, and the turn-around time for my getting back to you will usually be almost instantaneous. Anyway, that number is: 816-807-4957. Also, I have two e-mail addresses, and it’s important that any e-mail department that you might send to the one address be simultaneously sent to the other. The first e-mail address where I can be reached is msmith2210@aol.com and the second one is mythoklast@mailstation.com . I also want to update my street address. I imagine that the address you have for me is still the one on Broadway. But I’d much prefer that all mail be sent to me c/o Smith at 8606 Chestnut Circle, Apt. #3; Kansas city, MO 64131.
I really appreciate your taking time to focus on this complaint I’m lodging against Brian Lidiak, who is, incidentally, now the former E & C Officer at Baptist-Lutheran Medical Center; although he is, to the best of my knowledge, still the hospital’s Chief Operations Officer.
I find it extremely unfortunate that it’s come to this. But the simple fact of the matter is that I was wrongfully terminated this past February because (and only because) Brian Lidiak failed to the do job which your department had assigned him to do last October. I had my job stolen from me because Brian Lidiak failed to do his job. That’s what it boils down to.
Once again, however, I’m now putting my faith in your department to see to it that things are made right and that I can soon have my job back - or that some equally fair and just resolution can be arrived at.
In the best of all possible worlds, it might make most sense for your department to send a trained team of fact-finders to Kansas City to take statements, and to report back to Nashville with their unbiased findings. Anyway, I’m sure that your department will address these issue in whatever way seems best to you. Thanks again for taking the time to listen. I hope to hear back from you soon.
Sincerely,
Galen Green
Report #0511-CHA-10005
Encl.
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