Sponsor me in the 2005 MS Walk! Why? Read here.
Hey, would the person who�s now read each of my 280 entries at least twice please stand up and say hello? Thanks.
I just had a really disturbing phone call.
Two weeks or so ago, the management team at the hospital I work in announced that there would be a round of layoffs here. They gave very little information outside of the fact that they expected it would encompass 8-10% of the workforce, and have said nothing about it since.
They also announced that the Hunter Group had been contracted to come in as consultants and help cut spending within the hospital to a point where we can become financially solvent.
The Hunter Group is notorious for sweeping through hospitals and wreaking havoc with their staff. Someone likened their processes to pruning a plant to within an inch of its life and then selectively allowing branches to grow back. Places that have been �helped� by the Hunter Group generally take between two and five years to get back to a point where they function well. We�ve already been told to expect another, larger round of layoffs after the Hunter Group leaves.
When asked why they thought this particular group of consultants would be worth the millions of dollars we�ll have to pay them to come in and �help� us, considering that the last five groups of consultants we�ve hired have done nothing at all to improve our financial situation, hospital management got quiet and quickly changed the subject without giving anything that remotely resembled an answer.
Mr. M., on a couple different occasions, has given educated estimates of what he thinks the layoffs will mean to our department. He suggested that, given our position in the hospital as a revenue-producing department, the first round would likely mean approximately 8 employees in Radiology. He also said this morning that going by the historical data regarding the Hunter Group in other Radiology departments, he guessed their suggestion would be to cut 60 or so employees from the department, but that BOTH those numbers were pure conjecture, and didn�t necessarily mean 68 people suddenly having no jobs. It meant positions out of our budget, many of which are vacant already.
So, back to my phone call�
One of the managers in the department, who happens to be my friend also, called to tell me that she�d been told by one of our physicians that we had numbers for the layoffs and just hadn�t shared them. He told her that yesterday, we were only laying off 8 people, but that today it had gone up to 60. He told her that as fact.
People should just keep their damn mouths shut.
I don�t understand what the hospital administration was thinking, sticking a fact like impending layoffs out there and then not saying another word about it for over two weeks. Doesn�t do a whole lot to inspire confidence in our workforce.
Someone recently told me that she believes we should just accept the fact that the hospital�all hospitals, really�are going to operate at a loss, and move forward from there. We should understand that the purpose of healthcare is not to make money but to cure the sick and keep the healthy from getting sick. She talked about Canada�s socialized medicine system as a good model to work from, if not just adopt.
I can�t say that I totally disagree.
Of course, I would bet that none of the COO�s of Canada�s hospitals has a ridiculous, over inflated six-figure salary.
Perhaps if all of the upper management just took a pay cut, we�d have a balanced budget. Just a thought�
~~~~~
So�anyway�we met with a caterer last night. Not sure yet how I feel about him. Given the fact that we were in his office for over an hour and a half, we did very little actual talking about food.
He gave us a proposal. Sixteen grand. Yep�that�s right. Sixteen thousand dollars.
It�s not too late to just run off to Vegas and let Elvis marry us.
~~~~~
The Boyfriend and I are sneaking up to New Hampshire tomorrow. Mom and David are already in Conway at my grandparents� cottage. It may be the last time I ever get to go up there. I want him to see it at least once, this place that so much filled my childhood.
I haven�t been at the camp at all in nine years. The last time, I stopped for an afternoon with Noel, a boy I dated briefly between being with and without Scott the HSBF. We�d gone camping in the White Mountains, and stopped to say hello to Nana and Papa before we headed home. Nana was all upset because I�d stayed in a tent with a boy.
That was the first time I�d been there in three or four years, too. So I haven�t slept in the camp since the 80�s. Since the summer after I graduated from high school. Since before my parents split up. The last time I was there for any length of time was the last time we took a vacation together as a family.
So many ghosts and shadows hiding in that space. Little me. Little Carla, too. If I close my eyes, I can see us, deep in the only physical fight we ever had, the �Conway Explosion.� She�d come up with me for a couple weeks in the summer, and we�d been side-by-side non-stop for days until we needed to create some space. I pushed the wrong button and BAM! It was like a scene out of the WWF. When it was over, we both hugged and laughed. All was fine all over again.
I�m afraid to go back into Conway.
I�m more afraid to let it go and not take the chance to say goodbye.
Wish me luck, Diaryland.
---------------------------------------------
Something to say about this entry?
Add your comments here (0 people have spoken already)
< I cuold just cover all the mirrors | Home from Conway >
