Looking Back....OSF Suspends Haitian Hearts Program

Peoria Journal Star

January 7, 2003

ELAINE HOPKINS

OSF suspends Haitian Hearts program -- Hospital says group must pay $500,000 debt

PEORIA - OSF Saint Francis Medical Center is suspending its participation in the Haitian Hearts program until the organization pays $500,000 to The Children's Hospital of Illinois at St. Francis.

''The program is suspended at this point,'' St. Francis spokesman Chris Lofgren said Monday. ''The debt has to be taken care of, and Dr. John Carroll needs to follow procedures and work with physicians who are going to treat them before he leaves'' for Haiti to bring back more children.

Carroll plans to leave for Haiti today and said he does not know whether the American consulate will issue visas for the children.

Carroll and his supporters said the hospital's action is not in keeping with its mission and that of the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis. Those values do not limit care only to those who live in central Illinois, Carroll said.

''My hope would be that the sisters and their mission would override'' the decision, he said.

Carroll said Sunday he has up to 20 children in Haiti waiting for treatment. Once he locates children needing the delicate heart surgery not available in their country, he confers with physicians in Peoria before bringing children back, he said.

Carroll picketed the hospital Sunday and Monday to call attention to its actions.
He received a certified letter Friday stating the hospital contacted the American consulate in Haiti to say no visas should be issued ''without prior written approval from The Children's Hospital.'' That contact could disrupt the delicate procedures for obtaining visas for the sick children, Carroll said.

The letter to Carroll, from the Peoria law firm of Hinshaw & Culbertson, signed by its attorney Douglass Marshall, states, ''The consulate was surprised to learn that The Children's Hospital had not granted prior approval to you and had not agreed to provide care free of charge.''

But Carroll on Monday produced a form letter from The Children's Hospital signed by its executive director, Paul Kramer, stating the hospital ''will cover all costs for surgery and hospitalization.'' The letter allowed the date and name of the patient to be filled in, so that a visa could be obtained.

The form letter was last used in October, Carroll said, but apparently the hospital has revoked it.

Carroll and others also said they were not sure of the $500,000 figure St. Francis says Haitian Hearts owes. A committee of the organization has been auditing the bills and already has found three mistakes, he said.

''We don't get itemized bills,'' Carroll said. ''I've asked for itemized bills.''

Lofgren said itemized bills for each patient will be sent if the organization requests them. He also said the amount owed is actually higher than $500,000, though he conceded any items in a bill could be disputed.

Laurie Howard of Peoria, the adoptive mother of the first Haitian Hearts baby, is wary of St. Francis' figures.

''Haitian Hearts is raising money and has paid'' for the care, Howard said. ''They (St. Francis) definitely dealt a low, low blow'' to the Haitian Hearts program.
Lofgren disagrees.

''The program has not ended'' but is only suspended, he said. ''When these two things are taken care of - the debt and he meets with us prior to going - we're back in business.''

Carroll is a former St. Francis emergency room physician who worked at the hospital for 21 years. He was fired in December 2001.

Carroll said St. Francis actually makes a profit on Haitian Hearts patients, despite a 55 percent discount, because there is a difference between the hospital's actual costs and what it charges for services. Its costs are 30 percent of the listed price, he said, and Haitian Hearts pays 45 percent.

''It's higher than that,'' Lofgren countered, adding it's under 45 percent. ''You have to have extra money'' to pay for expenses and future expansion, he said.
The 55 percent discount for Haitian Hearts patients, Lofgren added, is the greatest given to any organization or group.

Lofgren stated Sunday that St. Francis and The Children's Hospital provided $34 million in uncompensated care for local and international children last year.

Haitian Hearts recently has applied for a $1 million health care award from a foundation, Carroll said, but added that the hospital's action could jeopardize that award.

Anne Wagenbach, coordinator of Haitian Hearts, questioned the hospital's motives.
''They're saying it's all financial. Is that really true? I don't know,'' she said.

CAPTION: Dr. John Carroll walks the sidewalk outside OSF Saint Francis Medical Center on Monday bearing a sign with a message for hospital administrators who contacted the American consulate in Haiti to voice concern over issuing visas for Haitian children seeking medical treatment at St. Francis. Carroll is a former emergency room physician at the hospital and a founder of Haitian Hearts, an organization which brings children from Haiti to Peoria for medical treatment.
Dr. John Carroll walks the sidewalk outside OSF Saint Francis Medical Center on Monday bearing a sign with a message for hospital administrators who contacted the American consulate in Haiti to voice concern over issuing visas for Haitian children seeking medical treatment at St. Francis. Carroll is a former emergency room physician at the hospital and a founder of Haitian Hearts, an organization which brings children from Haiti to Peoria for medical treatment.

My comments today, March 8, 2009:

1. I did leave for Haiti the day this article was published. And the American Consulate would not grant any visas for Haitian Hearts kids to travel to Peoria.

OSF had no choice but to "suspend" Haitian Hearts. This was a public relations nightmare for them.

The only thing left for OSF to do to try and get rid of us was to involve Bishop Daniel Jenky. And that would be OSF's next move.

2. While I was in Haiti evaluating many children with congenital and rheumatic heart disease, I did call multiple physicians at Children's Hospital of Illinois (CHOI) on a satellite phone that I carried with me. The physicians were very helpful and encouraged me to bring kids back to Children's Hospital of Illinois. On one occasion I was planning to take a baby with congential heart disease to another medical center in the United States, and the CHOI physician strongly recommended that I bring the baby to CHOI. I took his advice regarding this very sick baby and the baby did great with surgery at CHOI. On another occasion, I had an accepting hospital in another state for three Haitian Hearts children. A different CHOI physician told me to bring them to CHOI--not the other medical center.

The bottom line is I had a great working relationship and communication with the CHOI physicians regarding Haitian Hearts patients. I consulted them from Haiti via the satellite phone, attended the cardiac cath conferences at CHOI when the pediatric cardiologists and surgeons reviewed Haitian echocardiograms, scrubbed in or observed during their surgeries in the operating room, examined the child in the physician offices pre and post op, and I followed the children in the hospital by examining them everyday in intensive care at CHOI.

Chris Lofgren did not mention any of this. And after I was fired from OSF, Paul Kramer met with another OSF administrator to try and keep me out of surgery with the children. Paul Kramer and OSF were unsuccessful. I think they felt that the backlash from the host families would be too severe if OSF tried to keep me out of the operating room along with everything else OSF was doing to stop Haitian Hearts.

3. I was hoping Sister Judith Ann would come through...but she didn't. She had told me that OSF would never refuse a child for medical care. But now they were.

4. Douglass Marshall, OSF's attorney, would write me a letter in the coming year which would refuse all Haitian Hearts patients. And kids started dying.

5. As mentioned in a previous post, OSF cut all funding for Haitian Hearts in July, 2002. And we were responsible for 55 per cent of total charges, not 45 per cent of total charges as reported in the Journal. And if Haitian Hearts owed OSF money for Haitian surgeries, now we didn't have the $257,000 dollars that OSF had slashed to help pay. The reality is that OSF had no idea about the figure and had to say something in the Journal when I picketed the hospital. And they changed the figure every article until they "forgave" the debt because OSF didn't want anyone looking at their books.

6. The first day I protested in front of OSF, Patricia Gibson, the attorney for the Catholic Diocese of Peoria came to my mother's home and met with my family (while I was picketing). She said that my protest was the right thing to do. Little did I know what was going to happen with the Diocese.

7. And contrary to what Chris Lofgren said in the article, Haitian Hearts had asked OSF for itemized bills in the fall of 2002. We never received an itemized bill from OSF after this request.

8. A glaring error made by OSF---Chris Lofgren should have never said that OSF needed to make some money for future expansion. They should not have tried to make money off of operating on some of the poorest kids in the world and charging us the way they did. Lofgren made a big mistake.

9. Anne Wagenbach was coordinator of Haitian Hearts and an OSF employee. Her quote at the bottom questioned OSF's motives. When Haitian Hearts did offer OSF full charges for Haitian Hearts patients in the years to come, the kids were still denied care at OSF. So I guess it wasn't all financial. (Incidentally, Keith Steffen threatened to sue Anne in his office at OSF.)

10. And Laurie Howard was quoted also. Laurie was an OSF employee too. Both Laurie and Anne were putting their jobs on the line to speak with the Journal Star. But Haitian kids lives were more important to them than were their jobs at OSF. Subsequently, Laurie was told by an assistant administrator that Paul Kramer wanted to talk with her in his office. Laurie smartly declined Mr. Kramer's invitation. (Neither Laurie nor Anne work for OSF in 2009.)

11. Well, OSF had to decide what to do now. It was time to call in The Catholic Diocese of Peoria for help.
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The photo above is a Haitian child's heart at surgery. It is distended and blue in color at the start of surgery. At the end of surgery, it is much smaller, pinker, and much healthier. The child is doing very well now, thanks to modern technology, and the hand of the surgeon, and skilled post op care. This child was accepted by a medical center that has operated on OSF patients that OSF did not want any more.

Looking Back...Paul Kramer Calls the American Consulate in Haiti

Peoria Journal Star
January 6, 2003

ELIZABETH KINDER

St. Francis frustrates doctor -- Haitian Hearts founder fears hospital letter to U.S. consulate will impede children's visas

PEORIA - OSF Saint Francis Medical Center is owed more than $500,000 for the treatment of Haitian children, a hospital official said.

The American consulate in Haiti has been contacted by representatives of the hospital about the distribution of visas to children seeking heart surgery at St. Francis, prompting Dr. John Carroll to demonstrate Sunday.

Carroll, a former emergency room physician at the hospital and a founder of Haitian Hearts, said he ''could not comment on the $500,000'' but said ''figures can be hard to come by from the Children's Hospital of Illinois Foundation, and it's hard for us to know where we stand.''

Carroll worked at St. Francis for 21 years before being fired in December 2001.

Haitian Hearts brings children from Haiti to Peoria for medical treatment, mainly heart surgery, at St. Francis. The program has made it possible for 94 children to receive necessary surgery at the hospital.

''We have uncompensated expenses in excess of $500,000 for Haitian kids brought through,'' said hospital spokesman Chris Lofgren. ''There needs to be controls placed. Any organization has limitations on what they can afford.''

Last week, Carroll received a certified letter from St. Francis' lawyers, Hinshaw & Culbertson, telling him that the American consulate in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, has been contacted about visa distribution for Haitian children seeking heart surgery at St. Francis.

He fears this contact may make it ''next to impossible for me to obtain visas'' for the sick children.

''My long-standing relationship with the consulate has probably been destroyed,'' Carroll said.

In protest, Carroll, 49, paced and carried a sign Sunday afternoon outside St. Francis, which read: ''OSF Administration: Respect for Life Includes Haitians.''

''Dr. Carroll needs to engage in conversation with the people trying to contact him,'' Lofgren said.

Carroll said he has ''been contemplating'' talking with administrators.

Since 1995, Carroll has traveled to Haiti about four times a year to bring children who need medical treatment to Peoria - treatment that Carroll says the island country cannot provide but is available at St. Francis.

''The technology is not there in Haiti . . . even the electricity can't be depended on,'' he said.

Carroll will fly to Haiti on Tuesday, where he plans to see if the consulate will continue to grant him visas. He has not yet called the consulate or set up any meetings, he said.

''I have to see how much damage has been done by the OSF administration or their legal counsel,'' Carroll said. ''(The program) has been working well over the years - we hate to see it destroyed because Haitian children will be destroyed.''

The Peoria native said he has up to 20 children waiting for treatment.
Lofgren said the hospital has ''not refused service'' to children brought in by Carroll, even with the debt in place.

''Last year, OSF St. Francis Medical Center and the Children's Hospital of Illinois provided a total of $34 million in uncompensated care to local and international children,'' Lofgren said.

In July, the hospital decided to stop providing $257,000 annually to Haitian Hearts, opting instead to offer 55 percent off regular charges.

To fill the hole, Carroll and other Haitian Hearts supporters held fund-raisers and sought donations. Carroll said $435,000 was raised in 2002 for his program.
He could not set a price for the average amount of treatment each child receives, saying it depends on the type of surgery.

All the money raised goes toward medical care, Carroll continued, with no overhead cost and no money given to the Peoria families who take in the Haitian children after surgery.

Lofgren said there's ''not really a set amount'' for the service the hospital is willing to provide, but the ''Sisters have been very generous in 125 years.''

Carroll thinks the original mission of the Sisters of St. Francis is being defiled.
''The Sisters' mission needs to be preserved, and that's what we're trying to do,'' Carroll said. ''There's a huge gap between the Sisters' mission in theory and the way the administration is approaching it.''

Mary Kay Hersemann has taken in five Haitian children into her Washington home since 1995.

Hersemann, 48, said when she and others from the Haitian Hearts program attempted to talk with members of the hospital's administration in the past, ''They don't clearly answer questions. They use intimidation and fear - fear sometimes works.''

CAPTION: Dr. John Carroll

My comments today, March 5, 2009:

1. OSF had no idea regarding charges. They had to say something on the weekend when I protested in front of the hospital. Chris Lofgren described my protest as a public relations nightmare for OSF. OSF changed the charges day to day in the newspaper (as can be seen in the following posts) and then had Dr. Rick Pearl "forgive our debt". (No one knew that Dr. Pearl was asking me to bring him Haitian patients to operate over the previous years.) And OSF didn't want anyone looking at their books so they decided to "forgive". And note that OSF cut out ALL financial support (257 thousand dollars/year) for Haitian Hearts six months earlier in July, 2002. And contrary to what was reported in the article, OSF was charging Haitian Hearts 55 per cent of total charges, not 45 percent.

2. Picketing OSF that morning was a very painful experience. But I thought Paul Kramer's call to the American Consulate in Haiti was inexcusable. His action was against the 125 year old mission philosophy of OSF. The Consulate official in Haiti was hyperventilating when she told me that Paul Kramer had called. She knew that would mean Haitian kids would die.

3. This day was the beginning of a very dark history for OSF. A few years later Jackson Jean-Baptiste and Maxime Petion would die after they were refused care at OSF.

Looking Back....Paul Kramer, Executive Director of Children's Hospital of Illinois

Paul Kramer, Executive Director of Children's Hosptial of Illinois (CHOI), obstructed care of my Haitian Hearts patients.


Haitian Hearts started as a small group of friends of mine that sat around my kitchen table and planned ways to raise money for CHOI to help pay for the Haitian kids we brought to Peoria for heart surgery. We had no overhead and all funds we raised went directly to CHOI. We paid for the Haitian kids passports, visas, airline tickets, food, medications, and on occasion, we even paid for surgery from our back pocket.

As the years went by we raised over $1.1 million that went to OSF-CHOI. The doctors at OSF never charged Haitian Hearts for their services.

During a meeting I had with Paul in his office in 2000, Paul told me that “Haitian Hearts is becoming too competitive for CHOI.” He meant that we were raising so much money in the Peoria community that was earmarked Haitian kids surgery at CHOI, he was worried that CHOI was being left out for purposes other than Haitian Hearts. Paul and other OSF administrators wanted money donated to CHOI to go for bricks and cement for the new Children's Hospital that they were planning at OSF. (That $250 million project is now underway.) I think he was nervous that people were contributing to CHOI-Haitian Hearts and other administrators were breathing down his neck. I think that OSF thought they needed to get control of Haitian Hearts.

Caterpillar Foundation was donating $10,000 per year to CHOI for Haitian Hearts. We noticed that on April 1, 2001, Caterpillar only donated $500 to Haitian Hearts. Where had the other $9,500 gone?

When CHOI hired Linda Arnold as director of CHOI Foundation in the late 90's she brought me a letter to sign that said that Haitian Hearts had donated $300,000 to CHOI. (I knew we had donated at least $600,000 to CHOI over the years. ) I told Linda that her amount was wrong, so she changed it to $400,000. I refused to sign that letter as well, telling her the amount was at least $600,000. She left the room and changed the letter yet again to $600,000. I signed this letter. My faith in the good faith of CHOI Foundation was falling quickly. The best I could say, was that their “book keeping” was bad.

Haitian Hearts never received itemized bills for our Haitian kids. CHOI just told us what they “cost”. So to check this out, an OSF nurse reviewed 6 charts of Haitian kids bills, and found that we had been charged $40,000 too much. (Example: Heart valves that were donated by the companies that make them for the Haitian surgeries, were charged to the kids.) When we showed Paul Kramer the errors, he did give Haitian Hearts credit for these OSF mistakes. I wondered how many more mistakes there were that we would never know about. This was so important to know, because it could mean that we were leaving kids in Haiti because of poor bookkeeping at OSF.

I did ask for itemized bills with a written request in 2002, but never received the bills. Hospital spokesman Chris Lofgren played this down in the Journal Star.

OSF also purchased a $21,000 sonogram probe with Haitian Heats money by mistake, and apparently returned the money to the Haitian Hearts account within CHOI.

A physician donated overtime hours he had worked to CHOI-Haitian Hearts. His donations over the years did not show up on the computer sheet at OSF Foundation as going towards surgery for Haitian kids. I tried to track down his money for 2 years at OSF, and was unable to. He was afraid to look for it himself for fear of repurcussions against him by OSF. He also would not speak to a Journal Star reporter over where he thought his donations ended up.

After I was fired on December 18, 2001 Paul Kramer constructed a letter to the financial supporters of CHOI. However, Paul would not sign the letter. Also, there was not a date on the letter. It was signed by the wife of one of the cardiologists who took care of Haitian kids over the years. The letter stated, that despite my “leaving” OSF, "the future of the Haitian Hearts program was bright and that the commitment of the Sisters and much of the central Illinois community is strong. This program will continue.”

The idea, of course, was that just because I was gone, don’t stop donating to CHOI. I was pretty sure that OSF was going to stop their support of Haitian kids coming to OSF, I just didn’t know when. Paul Kramer was too smart to sign the letter, probably because he knew what the fate of Haitian Hearts at CHOI was going to be also. (Sources close to Steffen within the medical center had told me, prior to my firing, that Steffen was going to cut OSF’s support of Haitian Hearts.)

On January 3,2002 OSF spokesperson Chris Lofgren confidently stated in the Peoria Journal Star, “John’s leaving (St. Francis) really doesn’t change Haitian Hearts at all. I was quoted as saying, “Haitian Hearts was held over my head by Keith Steffen. The implication was, Haitian Hearts would survive if I survived (at St. Francis). ”

During the Spring, 2002, Haitian Hearts under the guidance of Jim Holmes, a Haitian Hearts supporter, approached CHOI and Paul Kramer and told them we wanted to build a house in East Peoria, sell the house, and give what we made on the house (Haitian House) to CHOI for Haitian children’s surgeries. Paul did all he could to talk Jim Holmes out of this. Jim did it anyway and with the help of the central Illinois community, was able to sell the house for $177,000 at the end of 2002.

After the house sold, Mr. Kramer talked to Jim and begged him for this money. Mr. Kramer was quite insistent on getting this money from the project he discouraged from the beginning. Jim told him that the check would be sent when I gave the ok. Mr. Kramer told Jim, “Haitian Hearts does not exist and it wasn’t important for me to give the “OK”. (Haitian Hearts authorized that this money go to CHOI in early December, 2002.)

Haitian Hearts worst fears were realized when OSF pulled all financial support for the Haitian kids. This occurred on July 12, 2002. Chris Lofrgen’s statements to the media had been misleading in January and the letter written by Paul Kramer had misled the public. (Lofgren told me that he was intimately involved in the discussions with administration regarding my termination, so I don’t think the July news was a surprise to Lofgren either.)

Then things got serious.

Mr. Kramer spoke with the pediatric cardiology office and asked them not to schedule a cardiac catheterization on one of my Haitian girls in Peoria. The nurses in the office told me this. Thus, this delayed her diagnostic work up and surgery. I could tell the nurses felt bad about this.

I took a nun with me to Mr. Kramer's office and confronted him about his behavior. He didn't deny that he did this but I could tell he was not happy about being caught.

I called the Pediatric Resource Center at OSF and made a formal report regarding negligent behavior of the Executive Director of Children's Hospital of Illinois, Mr. Kramer, towards Children's Hospital patient needing heart surgery. Immediately, Mr. Kramer's ruling was overturned, and the Haitian girl was put on the schedule that afternoon.

In early August, 2002, another Haitian Hearts patient of mine, 7 month old Samuel suffered an arrest in his host family's home in Roanoke, Illinois. The host family and I thought that Samuel's surgery has been delayed inappropriately. We spoke with Mr. Kramer about this also. He denied, as usual, and Samuel's American mother told Mr. Kramer that she did not believe him.

In the fall, 2002, a Rotary Club North (RCN) official, Lyn Banta, called me one afternoon. He told me that Linda Arnold at OSF Foundation had just called him and demanded RCN turn over any funds they had collected for Haitian Hearts for transportation, food, medication, for the Haitian kids. This amounted to $12,500. This fund was designed for people like the small group of us who sat around my kitchen table and paid for these expenses out of our pockets. Now, OSF-CHOI Foundation was attempting to get these funds. Paul Kramer told a Haitian Hearts supporter that he had asked Arnold to make this call to Mr. Banta. Paul was part of the original conversations with Lyn Banta when this independent fund was started by RCN, and Paul knew that money was not to go inside of CHOI for CHOI’s expenses. Mr. Banta refused to turn over the funds to Arnold, even though she was “adamant” that he give them up. Mr. Banta told me that day, “John, you would never have seen these funds, if I had given them to CHOI- Foundation. ”

So, at the end of 2002, Haitian Hearts had raised and donated $445,000 to CHOI for their work with the Haitian kids. This totalled at least $1.1 million raised by Haitian hearts in 7 years, all of it going to CHOI. Multiple attempts were made to discourage us from raising funds for these kids by Mr. Kramer, and Arnold had tried to tap into Haitian Hearts funds that were not to go to CHOI. And true to what I was told, OSF-Administration cut any funding for Haitian Hearts in July, 2002 which was opposite to what OSF was telling the media in January. (No one in Haitian Hearts really believed what OSF said to the media.)

Then, to top off the year, Paul Kramer called the American Consulate in Port-au-Prince, Haiti after he received the Haitian House check in December, and asked the Consulate not to grant any more visas for my kids who needed to travel to OSF-CHOI for surgery. When the Consulate officials were telling me this in Haiti, a young lady, Bisolo, who was a Consulate official, began to hyperventilate and had to sit down. She knew what OSF-CHOI’s demand would mean for the Haitian kids in Haiti that would now not be able to leave Haiti…..

In 2003, as the end of summer came, Haitian Hearts had received no money from Children's Hospital of Illinois. We had become a non-profit in October, 2002. CHOI was keeping donations that was meant for Haitian Hearts. We took this to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office. Their point man told me that OSF had "clearly done Haitian Hearts wrong" (not exact quote, but very close.)

And in the last few years Mr. Kramer has sat on OSF's International Committee that has rejected Jackson Jean-Baptiste and Maxime Petion. Both have died after they have not been allowed to return to OSF for repeat heart surgery.

During the last 15 years, OSF-CHOI has lost a fair number of pediatric specialists. They have left town. It is very sad because they were excellent clinicians. Most people in central Illinois don't even know what we have lost for our children.

One of the physicians that left Peoria told me that Paul Kramer disappointed the most. I would agree.

Looking Back...the Peoria Ambulance Monopoly

On November 17, 2002, the Journal Star published an article I had written as an Op-Ed.

The article expressed my concerns over the ambulance/paramedic monopoly in Peoria.

(I have been unable to find this Op-Ed in the Journal Star Archives and so I was not able to post it here.)

Over the next few months after the Op-Ed was published readers wrote to the Journal Forum. Some were in agreement and others wrote that Peoria's EMS situation was just fine.

However, in 2008, the Peoria Fire Deparment became Paramedic for the first time. So things probably weren't fine in Peoria during the previous 15 years.

The following article was exceptionally good and appeared in the Journal Star.

My comments follow.


December 8, 2002
Sunday

CATHARINE SCHAIDLE

City explores giving fire department more power -- However, proposal taken off Peoria City Council's agenda

PEORIA - The city of Peoria wants to upgrade its fire department from offering basic life support services as it does now to becoming an intermediate service that can also administer medication in emergency situations.

''The fire department has been given the power by the city to explore the possibility of going into ILS (intermediate life support),'' said Fire Chief Roy Modglin. ''Intermediate life support is one step higher than what we are allowed to do at this time.''

At the intermediate level, firefighters would be able to administer drugs and other medication in addition to instituting a defibrillation program that will increase the chance of survival for those who suffer a heart attack. A proposal to make this happen was on the Peoria City Council's agenda for this week, but it recently was retracted.

For 15 months, representatives of Advanced Medical Transport, the fire department and the city have been meeting to discuss the issue and possibly develop a collaboration program with AMT. The latter group would provide the necessary training.

One caveat of the proposal was that it didn't let the fire department enter the ambulance business for a certain number of years, said at-large Councilman Jim Ardis, who is involved in the negotiations. Most ambulance services are certified to provide advanced life support services - which is yet another step higher.

For years, AMT has balked at the fire department entering this arena. AMT is an independent not-for-profit organization initiated by the three Peoria hospitals. It has been providing ambulance and wheelchair van transportation services to 22 communities in the Peoria area for more than 10 years.

The majority of municipal fire departments provide ambulance services says Pete Stehman, information service manager of Associated Firefighters of Illinois in Springfield. According to the association's figures, in Illinois there are 16 union fire departments with 100 or more firefighters. Of this number, at least 13 of them or 81 percent transport patients. There are eight fire departments that serve populations of 90,000. Of this, six departments or 75 percent handle transportation.

AMT is willing to help the fire department advance to the intermediate level, but it does not want the department to transport patients, said Andrew Rand, AMT executive director.

''They can provide more comprehensive care than they do now,'' Rand said. ''It's a powerful system, and in fact we agreed to provide that training free.''

Rand said Ardis had also proposed a franchise agreement where both parties would collaborate on improving services.

''We were going to receive hazmat training and decontamination procedures from them because we are on the frontlines of bioterrorism and decontamination,'' Rand said.

The point of contention however, Ardis said, is AMT's insistence that the city keep out of the ambulance business for an extended period of time.

''That's one of the issues that has fluctuated a lot,'' Ardis said. ''It has been anywhere from four years to 10 years. My impression is that we aren't going to commit to anything longer than four to five years.''

Proponents of letting the fire department transport patients argue that the fire department should be in the ambulance business because it is usually first on the scene of an emergency situation and provides basic life support. They argue that two or three minutes can make a difference in saving a life. In addition to transporting patients, proponents want the firefighters to be able to administer the necessary drugs and bill the patient for the service.

The proponents have written several letters to the editor recently publicizing their stance.

Rand disputes that the fire department is usually the first responder.

''That is absolutely false,'' Rand said. ''They keep propagating it but their response time doesn't jive with their records.''

Rand said he's obtained fire department records through the Freedom of Information Act which shows otherwise.

In addition, Rand said that while the fire department responds to all calls with lights and sirens, the AMT uses lights and sirens only half the time. ''We prefer not to risk life and limb of citizens when there is no immediate emergency,'' he said, adding that if a person had a minor injury, an additional two or three minutes would not make a difference in that situation.

Rand also said the fire department has stated it is not interested in providing ambulance service.

''All of the discussions have been that the fire department wants to do intermediate life support, and it does not want to transport patients. That has always been the position. That was what the agreement was written to address; to balance the collaboration of both parties,'' Rand said.

But, city officials have not ruled it out.

''If we want to have a highly trained fire and medical department in the city, there is nothing that AMT can do to prevent us from doing so,'' Ardis said. ''That is a policy decision. I don't think that anybody can make the argument that anybody would not want the best trained people to be there for them all the time in case of an emergency. Why would you not want that?''

Rand said he requested that the proposal not be presented to the Council at this time because City Manager Michael McKnight had advised the council not to adopt it. McKnight did not return Journal Star phone calls.

''I don't think it is appropriate for that agreement to come up, and what we have asked the city to do is sit down and see what it takes to solve 15 months of negotiation,'' Rand said.

While Rand is confident that all the differences will be resolved, Mayor Dave Ransburg said he did not know when the subject is likely to come before the council.

''Will it come back on? I don't know,'' Ransburg said. ''It may never come up again.''

Another part of the proposal is for AMT to pay the city a fee of $60,000 a year for using the city's dispatch system. Currently, they pay nothing.

''All that the city provides to AMT is an address to an emergency situation,'' Rand said. He said the service is not comparable to what other departments, such as the Peoria Sheriff's Department, receive.

''The city's dispatch center actually follows a deputy to that whole call,'' he said. ''With AMT it is not even dispatching; it's simply messaging from their computer to ours.''
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My comments from today, February 25, 2009:

1. Not much had changed since 1992. AMT wanted to keep the transport monopoly of sick EMS patients in Peoria. And Andrew Rand was proven wrong when Matrix came to Peoria and studied response times in and reported to the City Council that the PFD responded about 1.5 minutes quicker than AMT to life threatening events. Peoria Fire Fighter Terry Carter had hit it all on the head 10 years earlier.

2. Where were Drs. George Hevesy and Rick Miller? Why weren't they supporting that the PFD upgrading to Intermediate level? Did OSF have anything to do with their silence?

Dr. Hevesy was being paid by AMT.

3. The next month, January 2003, AMT lost a City Council vote for the contract to be the only paramedic/transport agency in Peoria for the next ten years. And Andrew Rand and AMT did not teach the PFD to become Intermediate providers.

4. I will provide Forum letters that appeared over the next several years in coming posts. Dr. Rick Miller at OSF continued to defend Peoria EMS and the PFD stayed at Basic-D with Basic drugs. When a man died in the restaurant a few years later, and I spoke to the City Council about this, things started to change.

Looking Back...Samuel Valbrun

Peoria Journal Star, The (IL)
August 27, 2002

ELAINE HOPKINS

A chance to survive -- Haitian Hearts program provides child's surgery

PEORIA - With his aunt and cousin at his bedside, a 7-month-old Haitian baby struggled for breath Monday as he recovered from heart surgery at The Children's Hospital at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center.

''He's a survivor,'' said Janet Knepp, a Haitian Hearts supporter who has cared for the baby, Dan-Samuel Valbrun.

Samuel's cousin, 32-year-old nursing student Myrtho Dupresil of Jersey City, N.J., said hospitals in New Jersey turned her down when she asked them to provide the lifesaving surgery that the baby needed.

A friend of a friend in Haiti knew of Dr. John Carroll, the Peoria physician who founded the Haitian Hearts program, she said.

''He saw the baby and said surgery was needed or he would die. They brought him here,'' Dupresil said.

Samuel is one of 90 Haitian children whom Carroll has brought to the U.S. for surgery and post-operative care unavailable in Haiti. The charity program has been supported by donations and fund-raisers.

Doctors donate their surgical skills, and the hospital, usually St. Francis in Peoria, has supported the effort in various ways, lately by offering discounts to Haitian Hearts patients.

Asked about the ethics of spending scarce medical resources on a few very sick children, Carroll questioned whether medical spending should be a matter of selecting priorities.

''The money is there in our society,'' he said. ''The technology is there. The will is there, among the nurses, the physicians, the providers, and we should be doing this. There's no reason every hospital in the U.S. could not help out'' by providing this type of care.

Dr. Gary Raff performed heart surgery on Samuel that repaired a congenital defect complicated by the reversal of his abdominal organs. He had suffered oxygen deprivation since birth, Carroll said, and his body still is adjusting to the repairs.

His prognosis is guarded, Carroll said. ''He doesn't have a normal heart and may need further corrective surgery but the (procedure) helped him and raised (his) oxygen levels. Every day is a big day for Samuel. He fights a bunch of little battles every day.''

Dupresil and the baby's aunt, Anchise Valbrun of Haiti, arrived last week. They're leaving today but Dupresil is adopting Samuel to keep him in the U.S. for additional medical care.

Samuel arrived in Peoria on June 29, and was cared for by a registered nurse in the Haitian Hearts program until a family emergency sent him to live with the Knepps.

The surgery and its difficult recovery were only the latest travail for Samuel.

Tears filled Knepp's eyes as she described how Samuel awoke early Aug. 3, was fed, then suddenly stopped breathing. Knepp said she called for her husband, dialed 9-1-1 then watched in amazement as the couple's 17-year-old daughter, Sarah Knepp, who had been asleep, awoke and administered CPR, saving Samuel's life.

Sarah had been a lifeguard, Knepp said, but had never saved a life at the pool.

Knepp had gone to Haiti with Carroll, had taken Samuel from his mother, Rosemond Valbrun, and held him on the flight back to Peoria. ''I was the one who carried him home. I took him from his mother. Nothing could happen to him,'' she said.

Samuel is the Knepp family's fifth Haitian child in the program. ''You can tell your (own) kids about helping others but until they experience it,'' she said, they won't understand.

Samuel's birth in Haiti was also difficult. He is the only child of Rosemond Valbrun, a 40-year-old single mother, Dupresil said. Just before her due date, the mother collapsed and had to be resuscitated, Dupresil said.

Samuel immediately had breathing problems because of his heart difficulties, and spent most of the spring in Haitian hospitals on oxygen.

Despite his medical problems, Samuel is bright and friendly, Knepp said. He says ''da-da'' and smiles, and plays with toys. He weights only 11 pounds, but has gained weight since arriving in central Illinois.

''They're big challenges,'' Carroll said of the Haitian children. ''It takes courage to take care of them.''

CAPTION: Dan-Samuel Valbrun

CAPTION: Myrtho Dupresil, left, of New Jersey and Anchise Valbrun, of Haiti smile at 7-month-old Dan-Samuel Valbrun as he lies beneath an oxygen hood at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center's pediatric's intensive care unit Monday morning. Dupresil found the Haitian Hearts Program while desperately trying to find a way to get her tiny second-cousin life-saving medical treatment unavailable in Haiti. Samuel was born with a defective heart and other serious health problems. Dupresil and Valbrun, Samuel's aunt, came to Peoria last Friday before his heart operation.


My comments:


1. At the clinic in Haiti in June, Samuel was brought to me. He had congenital heart disease. I examined him and reviewed his echocardiogram. I called Dr. Dale Geiss, our excellent pediatric heart surgeon in Peoria. He told me that if I did not bring Samuel, the baby would die.

2. We returned to Peoria with Samuel and with other kids that needed heart surgery on June 29, 2002.

3. Samuel had his appointment with the pediatric cardiologist soon after we arrived in Peoria. His cardiologist recommended surgery within the week.

4. Samuel’s host mom was pediatric cardiac intensive care nurse at OSF. She was pleading that Samuel be operated quickly.

5. However, weeks went by, and Samuel was not operated.

6. At about 6 AM on August 3, 2002, I received a phone call. On the other end of the line was Janet Knepp who was hysterical and screaming that Samuel had just quit breathing and her daughter was doing CPR. They lived 25 miles from Peoria and called the local volunteer ambulance service. I told Janet to continue all support and that I would meet them in the OSF-ER.

7. As I quickly drove down Main Street in Peoria, I was planning Samuel’s funeral. How terrible and sad, I thought. I felt physically ill.

8. Waiting in the OSF ER for the arrival of the ambulance was torture for many reasons. Finally, the squad arrived and we descended on the big white stretcher with Samuel’s little brown body in the middle. However, as I looked at him, I heard him make a whimper.

9. Samuel was alive and trying to breathe. His eyes opened and, even though his gaze was divergent, he was looking around.

10. In the ER we supported him with oxygen and an IV and admitted him to pediatric cardiac intensive care.

11. As the days went by, Janet Knepp and I told Paul Kramer, Executive Director of Children’s Hospital, how upset we were with the delay in Samuel’s surgery and his subsequent arrest.

12. Samuel was stabilized and operated at OSF Children’s Hospital of Illinois.

13. I met with Monsignor Steven Rohlfs of the Catholic Diocese of Peoria to report Samuel’s neglectful care at OSF. Monsignor Rohlfs responded, “If it ever happens again, let me know.” That was it.

Looking Back....OSF Slashes all Financial Support of Haitian Hearts

Peoria Journal Star
July 14, 2002

ELAINE HOPKINS

Haitian Hearts loses funding -- St. Francis slashes support

PEORIA - OSF Saint Francis Medical Center has cut most of its financial support for the Haitian Hearts program.

The hospital has been providing $257,000 yearly in nursing and other support for the sick children from Haiti, Dr. John Carroll, who founded the program seven years ago, said Saturday.

But at a meeting Friday night, the Haitian Hearts committee learned that support will be cut and the hospital now will offer only a 55 percent discount off its regular charges to care for the children, Carroll said.
''This will mean the deaths of Haitian children,'' Carroll said. ''I walked out the door'' at the meeting, where some others in attendance were in tears, he said.

St. Francis spokesman Chris Lofgren said Saturday the discount offered to the Haitian Hearts program softens the blow. ''It probably is a deeper discount than other contracts'' at the hospital, he said.

''We're contacted by a wide variety of groups for international kids. We have to get a handle on services provided to all international patients, including Haitian Hearts patients,'' Lofgren said.

With fund-raising from the Haitian Hearts group, about 15 patients will be served annually, Lofgren said. ''We are not turning our back on the Haitian Hearts program.''

Carroll said the hospital's support of $257,000 was in addition to a 45 percent discount for the children's care, a discount that he believes was above the hospital's actual costs.

Carroll worked at St. Francis for 21 years but was fired in December after a dispute with hospital officials over care standards in the emergency department. He still retains hospital privileges, however.

At the time, hospital officials said support for Haitian Hearts would continue, though Carroll expressed concern that it would diminish or end.

If the hospital cannot afford the program, top executives should take pay cuts and channel that money into the program, Carroll said Saturday.

Surgeons have donated their services to the Haitian children, he said. Carroll also has financially supported the program himself.

Support for the program is ''the right thing to do,'' follows the mission of the Sisters of St. Francis and also provides valuable learning experiences for the hospital's residents and medical students, he said. ''These kids are from the developing world.''

Since the year began, the Haitian Hearts committee has raised more than $400,000, which Carroll said has been paid to Children's Hospital at St. Francis. It's raised more than $1 million in the past 41/2 years. That level of fund-raising will be difficult to sustain, he said.

Carroll said he was not sure when the hospital's support was ending, but he felt the fund-raising had been sufficient to treat the seven Haitians he brought here at the end of June.

Lofgren said he also was unsure when the cutback goes into effect, but the hospital's fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

My comments:

1. As Haitian Hearts predicted, OSF cut all financial support for Haitian Hearts. Behind the scenes Keith Steffen had indicated all along that he was going to cut support. (Behind the scenes Mr. Steffen also said that Haitian kids make him want to vomit...) And Chris Lofgren told the public that OSF was not turning their back on the Haitian Hearts program....as they were cutting all financial support for the program.

2. Now OSF was going to charge Haitian Hearts 55% of total charges per case. This was a lot of money. We raised money with spaghetti dinners and selling cookies. And this would mean the death of Haitian children.

3. No OSF Sisters were present at the meeting. Sister Judith Ann had told me multiple times that they would never turn down a child. But at the same time the Sisters were allowing their administrators to cut all funding for these kids. The Sisters had lost control of the hospital. And it was going to get worse in the coming years.

Looking Back....the Haitian House and Paul Kramer

This will be an interesting post...

What will this be about?

It will be about Children's Hospital of Illinois discouraging us from building the house. And then when we built it, Paul Kramer pleaded for the money.

Mr. Kramer told Jim Holmes there was no such thing as Haitian Hearts and asked Community Foundation Director James Sullivan to release the money. Neither individual would release the money to Mr. Kramer.

After Haitian Hearts donated the money (approximately $187,000) to Children's Hospital at the end of 2002, Mr. Kramer "thanked us" by calling the American Consulate in Haiti to stop me from bringing any more Haitian children for heart surgery to OSF.



Peoria Journal Star
March 20, 2002

MICHAEL SMOTHERS

Haitian Hearts breaking new ground -- Proceeds from sale of $200,000 home will go to Carroll program

EAST PEORIA - Katina Antoine clutched her arms around her jacket and looked out of her element. Temperatures never dip near freezing in Haiti.

But the muddy ground on the wooded lot along Illini Drive has thawed by now and Katina, 7, took the gold-painted shovel handed to her and joined local dignitaries and friends, including Dr. John Carroll, in turning a ceremonial first spade of earth.

Soon, the holes they started will reach deep enough to hold the full basement of a house that Carroll and other members of the grass-roots Haitian Hearts Program hope will sell for $200,000 or more.

None of that money will pay the home's builders, Jim Holmes & Sons of Groveland, or even the building materials' costs, said Holmes and Jeff Kolbus, who represented the Homebuilders Association of Greater Peoria at the groundbreaking ceremony.

Every dollar from the home's purchase, they said, will go directly to the charity, which Carroll helped found to bring young people from the poverty-stricken Caribbean country to Peoria for live-saving heart surgeries.

''When I see this project (begin), I'm seeing five Haitian kids waiting to come for heart surgery,'' Carroll told the group, which included Mayor Charles Dobbelaire and city commissioners Harold Fogelmark and Betty Dodson.

Carroll and Kolbus credited Holmes, who with his wife is adopting a Haitian child too ill to return home with much hope for survival, for organizing the plan to build the home entirely with donated materials and labor for the charity's benefit.

Carroll and other charity officials personalized the point of their program by bringing Katina and five other Haitians, whom Carroll has most recently selected for surgery, to the one-third-acre site in the 700 block of Illini. All but Yvel Gresseau, 28, are children, ages 2 to 16.

''They all need surgery,'' said Carroll, who in December was released from OSF Saint Francis Medical Center after 21 years as an emergency room physician but still maintains ties between the hospital and the charity he co-founded.

Holmes said he expects to begin construction of the home by next week and complete it in time for sale offering in late June.

Haitian Deportations Continue

Haitians Look for Shift in Immigration Policy


By GINGER THOMPSON
New York Times
February 27, 2009

MIAMI — Vialine Jean Paul has noticed a change when she drops her 7-year-old daughter off at school each morning in recent weeks. Her daughter, Angela, is not sure that her mother will be back to pick her up.

“She tells me, ‘Mommy, good luck,’ ” Mrs. Jean Paul said. “She asks me, ‘Mommy, if you go to Haiti what will happen to me?’ ”

Though Angela does not know it, the hopes of tens of thousands of Haitian immigrants and their relatives have become fixed on her mother’s fate. Mrs. Jean Paul is one of more than 30,000 Haitian citizens who have been ordered deported from the United States. Her case could be an early test of whether the Obama administration will break with the strict immigration enforcement policies of the Bush administration.
After an estimated 1,000 people were killed in mudslides in Haiti last year, the government asked the United States to grant temporary protected status to Haitian immigrants — relief that was extended when Honduras and El Salvador were hit by similar disasters. The designation is intended for countries in such dire trouble that receiving deportees would undermine their stability.

Deportations of Haitians were temporarily suspended last September, while the Bush administration considered the request. In December, the request was denied and the deportations resumed.

Lawyers say hundreds of people were detained, pushing detention centers across Florida beyond capacity. Hundreds of other immigrants were forced to wear electronic monitoring devices.

Advocates for immigrants said the arrests and deportations have taken a toll on Haitian communities, tearing immigrants — whose crime was entering the United States illegally — from their American spouses and children.

“They told us they were going after criminal aliens,” said her lawyer, Cheryl Little, referring to the immigration policies of the Bush administration. “Would we be any safer if Vialine were deported? I think not. We are devoting a lot of resources going after the wrong people.”

Mrs. Jean Paul, 35, had not set foot in Haiti since she fled 17 years ago, in the turmoil after a military coup. During her time in this country, she had married an American citizen and devoted herself to taking care of Angela, who suffers from an undiagnosed illness that causes severe headaches and vomiting.

On Feb. 10, the date she was ordered to report for deportation after exhausting efforts to remain in the United States, she was on her way to an immigration office to turn herself in. Then her cellphone rang, and an immigration officer told her that her deportation had been delayed.

Aides to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she was reviewing the matter of Haitian deportations.

Meanwhile, the Haitian government has refused to issue travel documents to deportees, and the United States authorities said they were worried that confusion in Haiti over American policy was causing a surge in the numbers of Haitians trying to flee their country.

The Coast Guard intercepted 624 Haitians at sea in January, compared with none in November. Another 214 were intercepted on an overloaded freighter last weekend.
A decision on Ms. Jean Paul’s case is expected March 9.

Saintenese Mentor said her husband, Brice, might not have that long. A former aide at an adult education center and the father of two children born in the United States, he was detained six months ago, Mrs. Mentor said.

Mr. Mentor’s lawyers said the authorities had told them his deportation was imminent.
A State Department official, who asked not to be named because temporary protected status is a Homeland Security matter, said the United States was aware of the hardship caused in Haiti by last year’s storms. He noted that the United States responded with humanitarian assistance, including medical services provided aboard the amphibious assault ship Kearsarge.

But, he said, the United States determined that a strong international presence in Haiti, led by some 10,000 United Nation peacekeepers, gave that country sufficient support to accommodate deportees.

“This is a controversial position,” the official said, acknowledging a flood of letters from Haitian advocates and members of Congress, along with newspaper editorials calling onPresident Obama to stop the deportations. “But we believed Haiti had the structures on the ground that it needed to solve its problems.”

Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, Ray Joseph, disagreed with that assessment. Haiti’s existence has largely been defined by chaos. But the storms, he said, deepened the crisis, fueling runaway inflation and food shortages. He said tens of thousands of storm victims have been left without proper shelter, and the country is plagued by violent crime.

“Haiti had a very, very bad year in 2008,” Mr. Joseph said. “Why send these people back, when we have no place to put them?”

Louiness Petit-Frere exists on the charity of friends, according to his wife and relatives. He was detained six months ago when he and his wife, an American citizen went to request legal status for him. He was deported in January.

“He has no family there,” said his wife, Sherly Desir Petit-Frere, who recently returned from visiting him. “He has no water, no electricity, no work. It’s hell for him.”

Mr. Petit-Frere’s brother, Sgt. Nikenson Pierre Louis, just returned from two combat tours in Iraq.

“All the hard work and fighting I did to defend this country, I feel like none of that mattered,” said Sergeant Pierre Louis.

OSF Ethics Director Does not Answer

On February 12 I posted a letter I had written to the new Ethics Director at OSF-SFMC.

I did not receive an answer.

Is it ethical not to answer an inquiry regarding an ethics question?

My guess is that Ms. Skujdak Mackiewicz was told not to answer by the "higher ups" at OSF.

Welcome to OSF and Peoria.

Why was Pam Adams Silenced?

Why did Pam Adams publish nothing during the next 16 years about Dr. Hevesy being on Advanced Medical Transport's (AMT) salary? Or about AMT's Medicare fraud conviction?

Why did Pam Adams publish nothing on Haitian Hearts kids being allowed to die due to OSF's negligence?

I don't think her Journal Editors would allow her to write about these stories.

Her articles would be too bad for Peoria and for the Journal.

Here is an article that Pam wrote in 1992 regarding the newly formed Advanced Medical Transport.

Below the article are my comments.
------------------



Journal Star (Peoria, IL)
November 8, 1992

PAM ADAMS


AMBULANCE COSTS SOAR WITH SERVICE....BILLS FOR BETTER CARE CAN MAKE TEMPERS FLARE

Rona Ramage thought she was taken for more than an ambulance ride when the $440 bill arrived.

"I thought it was a mistake," she says. "They didn't do anything but get me out of bed and take me across town."

The $400 was the base rate, the $40 was a $5-a-mile-charge.

Ramage's injuries were no more than a muscle spasm, but her husband didn't know that when he dialed 911 for an ambulance last June. She had gone to bed with a stiff neck, only to awaken unable to move without excruciating pain.

Though the pain was gone in a few days, it came back a few weeks later when her insurer asked for an itemized bill because the ambulance charge was so high.
Angry at the cost, Ramage started asking questions. And she got a stiff-necked lesson in what it means for a city to have almost state-of-the-art ambulance service -- Advanced Medical Transport of Central Illinois.

AMT, the only ambulance service in the city of Peoria and parts of the rest of the county, is a not-for-profit corporation owned by Saint Francis and Methodist medical centers and Proctor Hospital. (Although officials say their eventual goal is to convert it to a for-profit private company.)

The good news is, until AMT was started in 1991, Peoria had never had such a high level of ambulance service. "The city has not been this well covered, ever. It's one of those things nobody knows," says Dr. Jim Thomas, emergency services director at Methodist and associate medical director for the Peoria Area Emergency Medical Service System.

AMT has 14 paramedic ambulances to cover Peoria, Bartonville, Dunlap and Limestone Township. Each ambulance is staffed with a paramedic and an emergency medical technician.

In years past, there were only two paramedic ambulances to cover the area.

The bad news is, citizens pay high-level prices for care that involves highly trained paramedics operating out of ambulances that are basically mobile emergency rooms, or Advanced Life Support systems.

The base rate increased from $300 to $400, which does not include mileage or charges for any medical services provided by paramedics. The other bad news is that AMT's aggressive tactics created tensions with some other Emergency Medical Service providers -- fire department rescue squads, volunteer fire departments, ambulance companies -- most of whom operate with Basic Life Support systems, staffed with emergency medical technicians. Those emergency technicians only provide the basics until a paramedic arrives or the patients gets to the hospital.

"There's the general feeling that when something is more expensive, it's a bad thing. The other issue gets to be, in some ways the ambulances appear to encroach on what may have been viewed as the work of government units, like a fire department," says Peoria County State's Attorney Kevin Lyons, himself a member of the volunteer fire department in Hanna City.

"I hate to say it's competing for victims, but it is."

Dr. George Hevesy of St. Francis is project medical director of the Peoria Area Emergency Medical Services System, a state-mandated entity made up of public and private agencies responsible for pre-hospital care in a 16- county region.

Because St. Francis is the resource hospital for the system, Hevesy acts as sort of an emergency czar, with ultimate responsibility and supervision of the medical aspects of ambulance companies, fire departments, rescue squads and their paramedics or emergency medical technicians.

"I do not -- nor will I -- allow competition for victims," Hevesy says. "The patient loses because the focus is not patient care, but politics."

Hevesy, along with associate medical directors of the area's emergency services system who are based at Methodist and Proctor, were strong proponents of an Advanced Life Support system with fast response and flexible deployment. Good or cheap Ramage questioned the care she got, but what she really wanted to know was how AMT could get away with charging so much.

Hevesy's answer is that area residents either can have a good, fast system or a cheap system.

Basically, Ramage paid Advanced Life Support prices when all she needed was basic care. But people don't always know that when they dial 911 -- which automatically means that they will receive advanced care.

Ramage got a clue to the complexities when she called the American Ambulance Association and the Illinois Department of Health, which regulates emergency medical service systems.

She also called other area ambulance companies to compare prices. That's when she learned, "There's a great deal of animosity out there about AMT." Using the information she gathered, Ramage railed at AMT until it reduced her bill to $175, Blue Cross/Blue Shield's usual and customary fee.

Andrew Rand, director of AMT, says the care Ramage received did not deviate from accepted standards and that the reduced bill was a last resort to resolve a problem with a persistent, irate customer.

"The American public will always expect ambulance service at taxicab rates. Those aren't taxicabs," he says, gesturing toward the fleet of ambulances beyond his office walls.

Quick response sought Rand, 31, is a paramedic with a degree in finance. The three hospitals hired him to shepherd a fragmented, slow- responding, money-losing system into an efficient, life-saving, financially black fleet with at least one paramedic on each ambulance. They also wanted a system capable of responding to 90 percent of the life-threatening emergency calls within 10 minutes -- 12 in outlying areas.

AMT was created in September 1991 by merging each hospital's paramedics unit with their Mobile Medics Ambulance, itself the result of the hospitals' earlier attempts to improve ambulance services.

Along with adding paramedic rigs, the way of keeping them at hospitals changed. System Status Management strategically placed ambulances throughout the coverage area to match supply with demand. Locations are determined by use.

In reorganizing, Rand also increased the ratio of scheduled calls, for instance non- emergency transportation between hospitals and nursing homes, to 40 percent. It had previously been about 15 percent, he says.

The base rate for scheduled, non-emergency transportation, is $200. Though most scheduled transportation is paid by Medicare or Public Aid, emergency transportation for Public Aid recipients drains AMT's revenues, Rand says.

Another reason costs were lower in the past is that the hospitals were absorbing the ambulance company's losses, Dr. Thomas says.

Reimbursements from Medicare and Public Aid are $84 and $70, respectively. About 50 percent of AMT's payment sources are from Medicare and Medicaid; 32 percent from individuals; and 16 percent from private insurers.

"As we expand, we can cut costs," he says. "That's just based on economy of scale. " Broad changes AMT bought out B&B Ambulance, a privately owned company in Limestone Township, in September. In a little more than a year, AMT has been the catalyst for broad changes in emergency services. Even its critics agree that ambulance service is better.

But change is difficult, Rand says.

AMT's employees, including paramedics and EMTs, had to accept a new role "as care givers, not just lights-and- sirens response," he says. "That was very, very difficult."

Other emergency service providers, seeing AMT's growth and prestige, may have felt like they were targets, he says. "That was not our aim."

And AMT needs to improve its marketing, when it comes to explaining fees to the public, he says.

Eventually, says Thomas of Methodist, the goal is for AMT to phase out its dependence on the hospitals until it is a private company.
--------------

My comments today, February 19, 2009:

1. Wow.

2. I don't know where to begin.

3. Pam Adams described Dr. Hevesy in his role as Project Medical Director for the Peoria area as an "emergency czar". I think many EMS agencies in the area would agree with that description.

Dr. Hevesy's comments above were very definitive regarding the fact that under his watch he was not going to allow competition between EMS agencies for patients. (The fact that he was paid by AMT may have helped him implement his policy regarding no competition.) The Peoria Fire Department (PFD) has said multiple times that Dr. Hevesy created obstructions when the PFD wanted to upgrade their services for the people of Peoria.

4. OSF and the Peoria Area EMS (PAEMSS) should have never allowed Dr. Hevesy to receive a salary from AMT. As Director of all ambulance agencies in the area, none of which paid him except AMT, he should have never accepted a salary because of the appearance of negative conflict of interest.

5. One of AMT's employees would turn in AMT to the Feds several years after this article was written. AMT was upcoding and charging the patient and taxpayer too much.

6. Why did the three hospitals in Peoria allow Andrew Rand to resume his job at AMT after AMT was found guilty of Medicare fraud?

7. Dr. Hevesy stated above that Peoria can have a "good, fast system or a cheap system" was not true. The Matrix study performed 10 years later in Peoria revealed that the PFD was responding faster to life threatening 911 calls than was AMT.

8. Too bad Pam Adams was silenced regarding EMS after this article in 1992.

Looking Back...One can only say so much

My comments from today follow the article.
--------------

Haitian Hearts Still Beats Strong

February 6, 2002

ELAINE HOPKINS


Haitian Hearts still beats strong -- Despite losing his job, Dr. Carroll still helps sick children get treatment

PEORIA - After four weeks in Haiti, Dr. John Carroll arrived back in Peoria on Tuesday night accompanied by six children and an adult, all needing medical care.

''All will be big-time challenges to Peoria's medical community,'' Carroll said. ''They are all surgical cases. These kids will get the care they need; I know they will.''

About 50 friends and supporters met Carroll and the Haitians at Greater Peoria Regional Airport. The Haitians will stay with host families while undergoing medical treatment.

Carroll, 48, of Peoria, is a founder of Haitian Hearts, a charity that brings children with life-threatening illnesses to Peoria and elsewhere in the United States for treatment they otherwise could not receive. He has won awards and visibility for his work with the Haitians.

A week before Christmas, however, Carroll was fired from his job of 21 years as a physician in the emergency department of OSF Saint Francis Medical Center. He said the dispute began over his push for more beds in the department.

St. Francis officials will not comment on the firing but have said the hospital's support for the Haitian Hearts program will continue.

Despite his firing, Carroll retains medical privileges at St. Francis, and he said Tuesday he will focus, for now, on overseeing care for the Haitians.

''My goal is to keep the kids healthy, improve them, get them back to Haiti,'' he said.

Carroll's mother, Mary, was among the group at the airport. She said several potential employers have attempted to contact her son recently.

Carroll said Tuesday he is still working on treatment plans for the Haitians. ''I would like to give Children's Hospital (of Illinois at St. Francis) the privilege of taking care of Haitian children.''

All the Haitians he brought back have either rheumatic heart disease or congenital heart problems.

He first met the 28-year-old, Yvel, three years ago. Yvel had rheumatic fever as a child and likely will need two heart valves replaced, Carroll said. ''He was hard to turn down after three years.''

Dr. Stephen Bash and his wife, Patty, were among the group meeting Carroll. Bash, a pediatric cardiologist, said he is scheduled to see three of the patients immediately.

''I'll find out tomorrow (what is wrong with them) and see if we can fix them,'' he said.

The newly arrived Haitians spoke no English and were weary and hungry after 12 hours of travel. Carroll said a nurse he knew from St. Francis happened to be on the same flight from Miami, and she helped with the children. They are Katina, 7, Cathia, 11, Stanley, 5, Jean, 5, Maxime, 16, and Jocelyn, 11.

Debbie Fischer of Benson brought the four children in her household, ages 4 to 16, to meet the Haitian child she will host. She has hosted others in the past and as a nurse can handle children with special needs.

Helen Martin of Eureka and her daughter, Sally Achterberg, a board member of Children's Hospital, brought homemade comforters and bags filled with small items for the newly arriving Haitians.

Martin said her church, Roanoke Apostolic Christian Church, funded the bags and made the comforters through its World Relief program.

Achterberg said she is serving on the Haitian Hearts Auction committee, an event scheduled for April 12. She hopes the auction this year will raise $100,000 for the program. It raised $60,000 last year.

''People are very generous,'' she said.

CAPTION: Clinging to Dr. John Carroll, Katina, a 7-year-old Haitian girl, appears timid after arriving Tuesday night at Greater Peoria Regional Airport. Katina is among seven Haitians--six childre--who were flown to the United States through the Haitian Hearts program to undergo heart surgery.

---------------

My comments from today, February 19, 2009:

1. Maxime Petion, who was part of this group I brought to Peoria, was operated in Peoria in 2002. I took Maxime back to Haiti after he recovered from his surgery.

In 2006 while I was in Haiti, Maxime became sick again. He needed heart surgery. OSF refused him care along with all Haitian Hearts patients. He died at another medical center in the States in 2007 and is buried overlooking the Illinois River.

2. Katina, who is also referred to in this article, was operated at OSF also in Peoria. As documented on this blog in multiple posts, Katina is fighting for her life in Haiti now. She needs heart surgery again and, so far, I can't find a medical center for her. OSF is refusing her care too.


(Photograph of Maxime at the American Consulate in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. This picture was taken one month before he died in 2007.)

Looking Back....

My comments today follow the article.

Journal Star
January 9, 2002

ELAINE HOPKINS

Fired doctor: Dispute began over suggested ER upgrades -- OSF official declines comment on issue

PEORIA - Dr. John Carroll was fired from OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in a dispute that began over more patient beds for the emergency department where he worked, he said Tuesday.

Carroll, an award-winning physician and founder of the Haitian Hearts program that brings sick children from Haiti to St. Francis for treatment, said he has no regrets about pushing for improved service for emergency patients.

''Would I do it again? Yes,'' he said.

Carroll said his job problems began with a letter he wrote about bed capacity in the emergency room, a letter which caused the hospital to discipline him in a ''punitive'' manner.

''The letter precipitated the incident and the discipline I disagreed with,'' he said.

The discipline involved placing him on ''probation'' for six months, Carroll said. The letter of dismissal that St. Francis sent to him mentioned ''disobedience,'' he said.

The 48-year-old Peoria native worked at the hospital for 21 years. St. Francis has been his only employer.

Hospital spokesman Chris Lofgren would not discuss the matter. ''It's an employee issue. We won't talk about it,'' he said.

Lofgren then added that Carroll ''was not fired because of ER issues. That's the only thing I will say at this point.''

Carroll said he was not offered another position at the hospital as the situation between him and his employer deteriorated. Both sides ''dug in their heels,'' he said.

Carroll acknowledged that the letter he sent to his colleagues and hospital officials circumvented the usual chain of command at the hospital. He knew he was taking a risk when he sent that letter, he said, adding, ''I wrote the letter with some trepidation.''

Carroll's firing, a week before Christmas, stunned his friends and supporters.
''He was by far the most compassionate doctor we had there,'' said a co-worker who didn't want to be identified. ''John has high standards of care and expects that care to be delivered to patients.''

The person said ''we are afraid to talk,'' for fear of being fired. ''We are in complete, absolute fear.''

''All he wanted to do is improve the ER procedures,'' a colleague said. ''He was frustrated. Others are also.''

People who have worked with Carroll confirmed Carroll's concerns about the emergency department. It was built to serve 35,000 patients a year but now is serving more than 60,000 annually. Some wait for hours, co-workers said.

Lofgren confirmed the usage figures, and said the hospital is planning to spend more than $2 million to alleviate the crowded conditions. The plans have been in the works ''for some time,'' he said.

Carroll has talked about his personal situation reluctantly, but said the truth should be told. He still believes in the hospital's mission, he said, and also does not want to jeopardize the hospital's support for the Haitian Hearts program.

He is leaving for Haiti soon and plans to stay there for a month. He said he has no idea what he will do about his career when he returns. He still retains physician privileges at the hospital, and his medical work was not an issue in his dismissal, he said.

Carroll has consulted an attorney about his dismissal, he said, but is reluctant to sue the hospital, because he doesn't want to enrich himself at the hospital's expense.

''It's not about money,'' he said of his dispute with St. Francis.
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My comments on this article today, February 18, 2009:

1. While I was writing the letter to Mr. Steffen and my colleagues in September, 2001, another OSF employee in the Emergency Department strongly warned me that I may be fired if I sent the letter.

I viewed the ER overcrowding as a "hospital problem" that needed to be solved with everyone involved. Plus, I did not believe that Drs. Hevesy and Miller were strong enough or politically inclined to try and solve the overcrowding issue on their own.

2. During my first meeting with Mr. Steffen in early October, 2001 he told me in his office that "whenever there is bleeding the bleeding must be stopped before it turns into a hemorrhage" and that a "cancer needs to be cut out before it metastasizes". (Not exact quotes but very close.) He was referring to me.

3. During that same meeting with him, I told Mr. Steffen that I was worried about "institutional neglect" regarding the overcrowded Emergency Room. He asked me what "institutional neglect" was.

4. Mr. Lofgren may not have wanted to comment in the Journal about my termination, but he was sure talking inappropriately with other OSF employees. And I WAS fired regarding ER issues. Mr. Lofgren was not being truthful to reporter Elaine Hopkins.

5. The patient and employee satisfaction in the OSF ER was the lowest in the medical center. Dr. Hevesy looked at me once and said look what I have inherited. He meant that the ER was very dysfunctional under Rick Miller's direction.

6. And as Elaine Hopkins documented, we were seeing tens of thousands of patients more each year than the ER was designed to see. Elective (insured) patients were filling inpatient beds, so ER patients like mine had to wait a long time to be admitted. And studies performed since 2001 have documented increased morbidity and mortality for ER patients that are boarded in the ER.

7. I invited Mr. Steffen to come to the ER and work with us. I really thought it would be a win-win situation if he would come and join us for an evening. I thought that ER personnel attitudes would improve if they saw him working on the overcrowding issue, and I also thought that patients and their families would take solace in talking with the OSF administrator regarding their long wait in the ER.

Mr. Steffen declined my offer.

Looking Back

Peoria Journal Star
January 5, 2002

Editorial

John Carroll is the kind of a doctor all patients need

Knowing the dedication that Dr. John Carroll has shown the patients of St. Francis and the children of Haiti, his quiet dismissal was as loud as a bomb to many of his friends, volunteers and admirers.

Statements by hospital spokesman Chris Lofgren in the Journal Star were very confusing and left me wondering if this dismissal had really been done thoughtfully. How can Dr. Carroll ''still have hospital privileges to practice medicine at St. Francis'' and at the same time be told to ''leave the premises''?

I find it hard to believe that Haitian Hearts would be ''unaffected by John's departure.'' Dr. Carroll, the hospital administration and employees did not reveal the reason for dismissal. However, from statements in the Journal Star and knowing Dr. Carroll's dedication to his patients, I have to believe that the problem was due to differences with the administration over patient care and policy.

When a doctor employed by a hospital for 21 years hopes he doesn't get ''in trouble'' for carrying an infant to intensive care, there's something wrong. Also, Dr. Carroll being described as ''a perfectionist and a fighter for his patients'' may sound good to the public, but this attitude must have caused problems for the administration of St. Francis and proved to be detrimental to his career.

Dr. Carroll's friends, peers and co-workers have witnessed the dedication, self-sacrifice and care he has given his patients. The administration of St. Francis should have thought a lot longer before ever considering dismissal. He is a superb physician who will disagree vehemently with anyone or any organization that he believes does not give proper treatment to a patient. He is a doctor that all patients need in their corner when they enter an emergency room.

Terminating his employment at St. Francis will definitely not improve emergency room care and may make citizens of Peoria wonder why such an excellent doctor found it so difficult to fit into the mold dictated by his employer.

Dottie Canellas
Former St. Francis employee
Tucson, Ariz.

Looking Back...Haitian Hearts Skips a Beat

Peoria Journal Star
January 3, 2002

Phil Luciano

Haitian Hearts skips beat

Haitian Hearts still beats, but time will tell how long or how strong.

Its founder, Dr. John Carroll, was fired by OSF Saint Francis Medical Center last month. Since then, this newspaper has been deluged by calls and letters, most of them confused about the future of Haitian Hearts.

The official line from St. Francis: The hospital will keep donating its services.

But Dr. Carroll says he has been told St. Francis will stop assisting Haitian Hearts as early as this year - a move that would greatly reduce the number of children the group saves.

''The last thing we'd like to see is the demise of Haitian Hearts,'' says Carroll, 48.

Before we get to the nittygritty, let me make a disclosure: I've known Carroll for years and have worked with him at medical missions in Haiti. I'd consider him a friend, though I see him at most maybe three times a year.

I don't aim to vindicate John Carroll. I honestly have no idea why he was canned from St. Francis after 21 years in the emergency room. Maybe he doesn't brush his teeth enough, or he wears bunny slippers. But he did nothing nefarious: His termination had something to do with professional differences between Carroll and hospital poo-bahs.

The hospital refuses to discuss personnel matters, and Carroll won't talk about his firing. He doesn't want to burn any bridges that remain between St. Francis and Haitian Hearts, which he started in 1995.

Years before, Carroll had begun making medical missions to Haiti, the poorest county in the Western Hemisphere, where medical care is almost nonexistent for 95 percent of the population. During his visits, Carroll would examine children with severe ailments, many of them heart-related, that are treatable in the United States but fatal in Haiti.

Carroll began to bring back one or two kids a year, beg his cardiac colleagues for help and lean on St. Francis for assistance. Carroll began spending six months a year at Haitian medical clinics, and he'd find more and more kids with bum tickers.

St. Francis donates bed space, nurses and other services; it won't reveal the worth of its donations, but Carroll estimates the figure at about $257,000 a year. Cardiac surgeons and other specialists donate their time. Carroll himself covers many extraneous costs, such as air fare.

But those donations don't cover everything. Haitian Hearts treats about 10 children a year, at an average of $25,000 per hospital stay. However, complications can prompt overruns; one lad needed some $750,00 worth of care before returning to Haiti.

So Carroll created Haitian Hearts to help raise money. It's part of St. Francis's Children's Hospital of Illinois. Over the past three years, Haitian Hearts has raised nearly $600,000, with about $275,000 pledged for this year.

So what's the problem?

Lately, this newspaper's letters-to-the-editor have railed against Carroll's dismissal. Some question whether Haitian Hearts can survive.

Chris Lofgren, spokesman for St. Francis, wants people to understand that the hospital hired Carroll as an ER doctor, not as administrator of Haitian Hearts. The group is independent of the hospital, he says.

Carroll's termination had nothing to do with Haitian Hearts, Lofgren says. Further, he says, the hospital will continue to support the program as it has in the past, regardless of Carroll's firing.

''John's leaving (St. Francis) really doesn't change Haitian Hearts at all,'' Lofgren.

Not so, says Carroll. Though he won't talk about the explicit reason behind his termination, he says St. Francis CEO Keith Steffen wanted him to somehow change his ways.

''Haitian Hearts was held over my head by Keith Steffen,'' Carroll says. ''The implication was, Haitian Hearts would survive if I survived (at St. Franics).''

Hospital spokesman Lofgren says Steffen never tied Carroll's job to the future of Haitian Hearts. Yet Carroll says that after he was fired, St. Francis sources told him Haitian Hearts funding would be discontinued - part of a hospitalwide cost-cutting measure to offset expected decreases in Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements.

If that were to happen, Haitian Hearts could continue, but at half-power or less. But that only takes into account dollars and cents.

Without his half-time job at St. Francis, Carroll cannot afford to spend half a year in Haiti. That means not only will he encounter fewer children, but he will have less time to wade through the quagmire of Haitian bureaucracy. Visas can take upwards of a year to procure, and that's only with a Haiti-savvy guy like Carroll greasing the wheels.

Plus, without a job, Carroll could have a harder time prompting donations. Potential contributors might be skittish about writing a check to Haitian Hearts when its lead physician isn't employed.

Carroll, along with the Haitian Hearts board of directors, plan to push forward - business as usual. Upwards of 10 Haitian kids are scheduled to come to St. Francis in the next couple of months, and Carroll says everything is in place for their treatment.

After that, who knows? But Carroll (who leaves this week for another monthlong clinic in Haiti) remains optimistic.

''If we can do only one children a year instead of 10, one is better than none,'' he says.

* Write Phil Luciano at 1 News Plaza, Peoria, IL 61643, or call 686-3155 or (800) 225-5757, Ext. 3155. E-mail him at pluciano@pjstar.com.
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My comments today, February 18, 2009:

1. As Phil accurately wrote, the future of Haitian Hearts was up in the air in early January, 2002. I don't think he believed Chris Lofgren or Keith Steffen either. And Mr. Steffen did indicate to me that Haitian Hearts at OSF depended on me being employed at OSF. And even if Mr. Steffen didn't fire me in December, 2001, he was telling others that Haitian Hearts days were numbered.

2. I sure did not want to be fired from OSF. I loved the place. Taking care of patients and teaching UICOMP medical students and resident physicians was fun. Also, some residents from UICOMP and other students and medical students from other medical centers in the U.S. travelled with me to Haiti and worked in the Haitian clinics and hospitals. It was a great experience for them and for me.

Also, working with Haitian Hearts host families in the Peoria area was a superb experience. We went through many tough times together when Haitian children had setbacks with surgery...but we went through it together, and usually everything worked out fine. At times, the local host family would travel back to Haiti with the child after recovery from surgery and present them to their Haitian mother. There are no words to express this situation.

However, the more I talked with Mr. Steffen and Dr. Hevesy, I could see that OSF was headed down the wrong path regarding the Emergency Department, intimidation of OSF employees, conflict of interest, general "administrative malaise" (described by a Monsignor in the Diocese), and lack of respect for the Ethical and Religious Directives that guide Catholic health care. Dr. David Gorenz, who is President of District 150 School Board, and Sue Wozniak, CFO at OSF-SFMC, even entered a meeting I was having with Sister Canisia through a side door from Mr. Steffen's office. I had not invited them. Their main goal was to sabotage my only meeting with 87 year old Sister Cansisia.

All in all, I thought it was time to let OSF fire me if that is what they wanted. Phil Luciano of course did not know what was happening in Mr. Steffen's office. He had no idea of what Mr. Steffen was saying to me or how bizarre he was acting.

A Look Back...Letters of Support

These letters of support were printed in the Forum section of the Peoria Journal Star.

My comments follow.
------------------


Peoria Journal Star
December 29, 2001

Editorial

Carroll's firing raises questions for St. Francis

It is very puzzling that the administrators at OSF St. Francis Medical Center would quietly fire the finest and most caring doctor in the emergency department. Was this done to intimidate other employees of the department so they would kowtow to administrators?

To me, the fact that Dr. John Carroll's dismissal was done quietly indicates guilt. I am not surprised that the administration did not want publicity for their action, given Dr. Carroll's sterling reputation in our community.

Dr. John Carroll wanted improvements made in the ER, but his suggestions were apparently rebuffed - probably because his ideas were superior to those of the administration. Dr. Carroll's dissatisfaction with the ER is certainly understandable given its recent rating of 25 out of a possible 100. Is this the kind of health care you want for you and your family?

The last time I was in the ER at St. Francis, I had to wait more than an hour before seeing medical personnel. During that time, I was left in a hall, and I felt like a spectacle for all to see. The two doctors I finally saw were not able to give a diagnosis. However, several days later, Dr. Carroll diagnosed my problem and proper medication was given.

By the way, who owns St. Francis? Why do the sisters allow situations such as this to occur? Do they ever observe procedures in the ER? Do the sisters attend meetings when important decisions are made? Do they know how the unfortunate situation created by uncaring administrators is affecting the reputation of their hospital? Why are they allowing the administrators to make important decisions that should not be made without the approval of the sisters? Did they approve the firing of Dr. Carroll?

Geraldine DuMars
Peoria



Peoria Journal Star
January 1, 2002

Editorial

St. Francis must keep supporting Haitian Hearts

OSF Saint Francis Medical Center has been very generous to Haitian Hearts. The sisters' mission needs to be preserved; Haitian Hearts is an excellent example of their love, compassion and devotion. They have supported Dr. John Carroll in his work for over six years. We want to thank the Sisters of St. Francis for their incredible generosity.

Dr. Carroll will not comment on his firing and he will not brag about his accomplishments. His patients from the emergency room and the host families of the Haitian patients are quick to tell everyone they know how he has selflessly devoted himself to their care. He has often met extended family members and others in emergency situations and made sure that we were taken care of. We are all stunned that he has been fired, because we have received such good personal care from Dr. Carroll and the other doctors in the emergency room.

The week before he was fired, he went to New Orleans and spoke to help raise money for Haitian Hearts and Children's Hospital. He knew he was going to be fired, but he went anyway. Nothing will stop him from helping those who need him. Those of us involved in Haitian Hearts hope and pray that his firing will not affect the future care of these very needy children.

There will be some financial difficulties, but we know that the sisters have been good to us in the past, and they will continue to be charitable and live up to their mission statement.

Dr. Carroll and his Haitian Hearts supporters have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last three years for Children's Hospital, and we will continue to raise funds for this cause that we so deeply believe in.

Mary Kay Hersemann
Washington


Peoria Journal Star
January 3, 2002

Editorial


Haitians Hearts can't continue without Carroll

The high integrity and the moral character of Dr. John Carroll has been an inspiration to all of us who have been associated with him in his work with Haitian Hearts and the emergency room at OSF hospital.

For over 20 years, he has always lived up to his oath as a humanitarian. The dismissal of Dr. Carroll from OSF, in such a degrading manner, is not due to any professional incompetence, but rather with the administration.

As lifelong supporters of OSF, we are bitterly disappointed in the reaction of the sisters by allowing the administration to dismiss Dr. Carroll. Just last month, Dr. Carroll was the recipient of the Catholic Diocese's Bishop's Award for Service. He also received the Governor's Award last year for his Haitian Hearts program. Through all his honors and work, Dr. Carroll has always put OSF and the Children's Hospital in the forefront.

Be not deceived; there is not a Haitian Hearts program without Dr. John Carroll. He is the founder, torchbearer and the keeper of this wonderful and compassionate program.

Rebecca, Fred and Jo Ann Schotthofer
Chillicothe

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My thoughts today, February 17, 2009:

I was very grateful for the written support of these people.

However, Haitian Hearts had a bad feeling that OSF was going to withdraw their support of the program now that they had me out of the way. OSF was trying to reassure the public in the Journal and they even wrote a letter to Children's Hospital supporters saying that Haitian Hearts would continue at OSF.

Sister Judith Ann, President of OSF, had told me numerous times that the Sisters would "never turn down a child".

However, Keith Steffen, Paul Kramer, and OSF ended all financial support for Haitian Hearts in July, 2002.

Our worst fears were realized.