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.