OSF, the Media, and the Carroll Family

The media in Peoria make sure that OSF looks good.

The Peoria Journal Star supports OSF and their 500 million dollar Milestone project. This project has been covered extensively in the newspaper. However, much of OSF’s immoral behavior never reaches the pages of the Journal.

OSF does a good job in many areas. But they should. That is the function of a not-for-profit Catholic medical center. However, the Carroll family knows they could and should do much better and we intimately know how OSF works behind the scenes. Most people do not have our perspective, and the people that do know what has happened are shocked.

However, OSF may not want to admit this, but many people speak in hushed voices in disdain of OSF's actions. People are very fearful of the power of OSF...and they should be. They don’t know where to turn. Many know their jobs (and health insurance) are most likely linked in some fashion to pleasing OSF and so they are quiet.

The Ethics Committees at OSF have no real teeth and neither does Bishop Jenky regarding key Catholic OSF policies. This is a problem. The Diocesan Ethics Committee regarding health care will not address OSF's medical negligence of Haitian children.

Respect for life should include Haitian lives. Early in 2007, Haitian Hearts’ Maxime Petion died. He was not accepted back at OSF for medical care even though he had been operated at OSF-SFMC in the 90’s.

OSF continues to deny former Haitian Hearts’ patients medical care. Other medical centers around the United States do not want OSF’s “problems” and are concerned about OSF’s negligence. As OSF ignores their own mission philosophy and the Catholic Ethical and Religious Directives regarding health care, more young Haitians will likely die.

The Carroll family was treated poorly by OSF in multiple ways. Medical care was obstructed and unethical things were said and done to us by the largest downstate medical center in Illinois. Why would OSF have this intense reaction against a small family who only wants honesty, accountability and transparency by the Catholic medical center that states they embody these qualities?

Keith Steffen is responsible for what happens at OSF-SFMC. I am sure he has been scolded by OSF Corporate and other people when he and his robotic staff have gone over the edge, but OSF will allow him to continue his ways until they are done with him. He is carrying out the dirty work for OSF. He knows it as do the Sisters and Catholic Diocese of Peoria.

Even though it is not politically correct in Peoria to scrutinize the Sisters, it is up to them to make sure that their philosophy is practiced and not scandalized. They have surrounded themselves with people that do not have the OSF mission philosophy at heart. As a result, all people that OSF should serve in central Illinois and in Haiti are not being treated in a consistent Catholic fashion.

OSF will change for the better. It probably won’t be soon, but it will happen.