I'm thinking the majority of the answers will be no, but here we go.... Okay, so I'm 21, recently graduated school, and have a fairly decent paying job at a local hospital in upstate New York. The hospital is located in what is probably the (or close to) poorest areas in the state. I would say about 60-70% of our patients are Medicare/Medicaid patients, which, due to a reimbursement issue, makes our hospital very poor. Our Board recently passed a measure saying that no employee will get a raise this year, and they will no longer match our 403 B contributions. They did this so that they didn't have to "let anyone go." Two weeks later, they fired 16 people, including quite a few nurses, a position the hospital is already severely understaffed at. We have like 22 Million dollars of projects that have been sitting on the backburners for at least five years. They cannot complete them because of financial concerns, etc.,etc. Our emergency room violates HIPAA, and is built to handle a third of the patients it actually sees. Due to Governor Patterson being an idiot, our hospital alone (a small, 350-something bed facility) stands to lose about 3.8 million dollars of state funding next year. All in all, our wonderful CEO just gave herself a 10,000 dollar raise. This really pisses me off. Royally. She now makes more (by far) than any doctor at the hospital. All this being said, I'm wondering if I should risk my job (if they caught me, don't know if they'd fire me....probably) and write an anonymous article absolutely blasting apart my company's CEO/Board. I just feel like I need to do something drastic to speak for 99% of my fellow co-workers. The job is something I'm not absolutely in love with. I cannot see myself there for the rest of my career, and I'm hoping to go back to school soon...
Do it, but be prepared to be fired if you're caught. I was fired from my last job for doing something similar to this. I've come to the conclusion most companies are crooked.
Hell yes I would do it. This does not sound like a friendly or healthy place to work. You would be doing a disservice if you didn't speak up. Do your thang...
Hey man, you posted a thread about your ear issue acting up again. Glad to see you're okay.... what was the deal?
My computer went down, and I forgot I had posted that... The Doctor said it was just an infection afterall, which is great news. The antibiotics cleared it up, and she saw no evidence of the cyst/tumor I had before. There were about 10 different bacterias living in there though... Symptoms are gone for now though.
Companies are just crooked like that. You will lose your job if they find out. Its more if you're willing to relocate if getting the feelings off your chest means that much. I thought health care was one of the recession proof professions. Guess not.
Not anymore. I remember reading several months ago how several private hospitals in Houston had to close down b/c they were not getting reimbursed for provided care.
First, if you're going to do it, make sure you get help drafting your letter. People will be more inclined to listen to the problem than your emotions. Unless you can come up with something that people don't already know, i don't think its going to do any good. Vast majority of hospitals like yours has these problems and probably worse. Not too many people are going to be concerned with a CEO giving themselves the equivalency of a $5 an hour raise, layoffs or no layoffs.
If your industry is Hospitals/Medical, then be prepared to see this everywhere you go. I'm not saying that there aren't better institutions out there, but like Spaceghost said, it's in most of them. I worked at UT Medical Branch for six years, and this stuff went on all the time. Also, doctors and nurses I would meet from other hospitals said it was par for the course.
What he said... Contact a local journalist. See if they're interested in the story and let them have their name on it. If there are any laws broken, I believe you could be protected under whistleblower laws.
Aside from illegal stuff like HIPAA violations, I think it's a big waste of time complaining anonymously. If you're gonna do it, though, make sure you proofread. This place I worked at once, disgruntled anonymous letters were posted all the time. Co-workers circulated them and made fun of the unknown dumb-a$$e$ that wrote them because spelling, grammar, etc were all wrong. The complaints may have reflected what everyone knew but somehow lost credibility due to really bad writing. Needless to say, these letters were big jokes and failed to impress anyone. Complaining anonymously is easy. Any ol' puss can do that. So be sure to include any ideas you have to make things better. You won't be taken seriously if you're just ranting or raving --- unless, you're citing something ILLEGAL (like the possible HIPAA violations), in which case reporting the crime is how you solve the problem.
Well, normally I believe that if you feel strongly enough to bring something to the attention of others then you should back it by putting your name on it. Problem in this case is that its you vs. a business and they most likely have a lot more firepower on their side. The idea I do like is taking the insight to a journalist and seeing if there is anything to be done that way. Not only can you stay in the background but they have the rescources to dig deeper and simply be doing their job.
