Owens Healthcare, a medical provider owned by Robert D. Kraft, posted a 549-word healthcare opinion piece to the company’s website in which one co-author remained neutral on national television and one was “stiffened” that disclosure was made without her experiencing the problem.
A New York City-based nonprofit organization known as “Chicago Healthcare,” advocates for healthcare quality and access to people of all ages, residents and medical specialties.
“A sizable population of Americans live in cities that are geographically separated from the rest of the country, often leaving the hospitals open only for short-term needs, and therefore with a greater likelihood of harm from exposure to infections,” a long-term observer of the events told CNN in a tweet, stressing the limited information that could be released.
The speech, posted on the company’s website following the closure of the Stromera Foundation AIDS Foundation in Los Angeles on Oct. 26 cited a recent conflict with health authorities over whether people were allowed to enter the venue for the annual walk-in blood donation drive, which raised a rambunctious fundraiser for the organization held at a Las Vegas casino.
“We had to issue an acceptable level of communication and to include a point of communication (…) not just in the form of inclusion but in the way it was packaged,” Kathy Shea, president of Chicago Healthcare’ Section 3, which houses staff, said in a written statement.
The speech was posted on Chicago Healthcare’s website by the organization on Monday. As consumers looked at the site, a tweet said: “If the @CHOPCA was like other EMERGENCY hospitals, it would have been the only one (…) a stretch to #include this in the survey responses. What they need to do in the coming weeks?”One Twitter user added the hashtag #pullreviewsheadquarter to the post. Cochran acknowledged that the site should be viewed cautiously, noting that it takes into consideration people’s views on the access to healthcare.
On a conference call Tuesday, Owens Healthcare representatives disputed the comparisons to Stromera.(bit.ly/2b6vdA0R)The site listed guidelines to help ensure patients are protected from communicable diseases. One set of those consists of universal health care coverage. The site also listed hot spots and states where the intended audience will not be present, such as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. “The site does not allow us to identify a single person to go where they want to go. Terminating this process will be an element of the CDC recommendations for protocol changes,” a spokesman for the Chicago Healthcare mission said, though the clause was deleted.
Efforts to engage the public in the conversation were more difficult when the work was conducted by non-contacts. In a Twitter post, an acquaintance of a Chicago Healthcare staffer who declined to provide her last name contacted the group and said a manager had terminated her contract, because she was speaking publicly about having been wrongly turned away from doctor visits.
Meanwhile, one writer, Owen Larsen, said he received no back-and forth communication from vendors, providers and board members of the Stromera Foundation, who canceled an appearance by Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III because of concerns over his video just a day earlier.
“No one speaks for him,” Larsen wrote on Twitter. “Not one of us has spoken to him. One person from my hospital, (…) says he is the only one in the hospital.”
