At the Jan. 16 meeting, many members of the public, including local hospital staff and officials, criticized the Avalon City Council for the way they treated Catalina Island Health’s CEO at a previous council meeting.
Earlier this month, CEO Jason Paret told the council that the hospital was in bad financial shape and speculated that he could hold on until June.
At least one council member suggested executive pay was part of the problem.
The response during the public comment part of the Jan. 16 meeting was mostly negative toward the council. Some members of the public reported that the council’s previous remarks were responsible for creating a hostile, possibly unsafe, environment for the CEO and his family. A few individuals supported the council.
The public comments took up the bulk of the roughly three-hour meeting.
For details from part 1, see “Hospital officials, public react to council comments about Catalina Island Health CEO at thecatalinaislander.com.
The following continues the Islander’s account of the comments.
Space makes it impossible to transcribe every word uttered by every person who spoke, but this covers the issue as well as time and transcription software allow.
Matthew Jervis, a medical assistant at Catalina Health, brought up the hospital’s role in health education.
“So whether that be the emergency medicine resident physicians or myself attending medical school starting in this upcoming summer, this has been an unbelievably eye opening experience to be in an unparalleled remote world location to be able to understand what it looks like every single day,” Jervis said.
“I think it’s just a privilege to be able to work with patients and to learn from them and every single day grow into a more compassionate and informed future physician,” he said.
“So I just wanted to hopefully rally a little bit more support, which I’m happy to see in the community as well, to keep this facility open and to fight for fair reimbursement for everyone who’s in this community to continue to receive quality exceptional healthcare,” he said.
Mayor Anni Marshall wished him luck in his career.
The audience applauded.
A woman who identified herself as Sophie said she was a medical assistant at the clinic.
“Now a lot of people I know and work with probably understand that I’m not much of a public speaker so it takes a lot for me to come up here,” she said.
“I don’t know I don’t know Jason [Paret] personally.
“But from what I have seen, heard and experienced that was not okay,” she said, apparently referring to comments allegedly being made about Paret.
“A lot of the community here doesn’t understand, if we lose our clinic and hospital or and anything of that sort, this community is kind of doomed,” she said.
She said she had heard community members complain about a 20 minute wait at the emergency room.
“Please have fun with your 5 hour wait,” she said.
“That is going to suck,” she said.
She asked individuals who have opinions about the hospital to be in her shoes or the shoes of other hospital employees.
“Unless you’re actually in there you have no idea what costs and products and inventory and salaries and all that [which] has already gone down,” she said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if someone starts complaining that I’m putting a 99 cent Band-Aid on them instead of something actually needed,” she said.
She said the bullying was completely uncalled for.
She said she just wanted to do her job.
John Lovrich, the hospital’s chief financial officer, also spoke in support of his CEO.
“I’ve been the chief financial officer here since 2009,” Lovrich said.
“I’ve seen CEOs, CNS Coos and all other positions come and go we’ve never had a CEO who cared more about providing quality health care to this community than Jason,” Lovrich said.
“He’s got so many good ideas and he’s implemented so many even with the space limitations of our current hospital,” Lovrich said.
“If he were to leave the new hospital project would most certainly fail and as Councilman [Michael] Ponce said last week, this hospital is not meant to serve the million tourists and the community that we have here,” Lovrich said.
“We need a new hospital. Not only that, more importantly, if you were to leave the current hospital will not survive without his ideas and leadership,” Lovrich said.
“He is a great leader. He has ideas that are going to pull us through this and prevent the demise of this current hospital,” Lovrich said.
“Please don’t let him leave,” Lovrich said.
“We need to treat him with respect and we need to treat his family with respect. Thank you, thank you,” Lovrich said.
Christopher Schwarz, who identified himself as the hospital Radiology manager spoke next.
“On September 9th, Jason’s intent was to come and ask the board for help [and] the council members for your help, not with money but we were asking for your support at legislation so that we can get the proper payment reimburse that we deserve,” he said.
“I felt very bad that it turned into something against Jason. We are here for the community. The community should come first in your eyes and not Jason’s salary,” he said.
“It shouldn’t be a stage for you to point things out,” he said.
“This was about the community. He was simply asking for help for the community and I want you to know that that’s how I feel,” Schwarz said.
“I’ve only been in this community for two years. I moved my entire family here because I really love the people here in this community. The hospital I have much faith in and I just want you to have you know the eyes for that Jason are here for all of you, not just us not just his family but everybody in this community,” he said
“So please give me your respect,” he said.
Julia Pasco said she was a traveler for the hospital. Her contract ended two prior to the Jan. 16 meeting. “I just wanted to say I’ve been an x-ray tech for 18 years and I’m an adjunct professor at a small community college and boy this is eye-opener,” Pasco said.
“You guys have such a great hospital here and there’s things specifically that have to be done to make sure you’re safe,” Pasco said.
“When I first got here I told my husband, this is odd because they do so much with what they have and then all of a sudden everybody’s flowing out by Mercy to Long Beach and I have never seen that in my life,” Pasco said.
Speaking as a past visitor since she was 22 years old, she said the community needs to keep a great experience here.
The audience applauded.
Neil McCree, who said he works with the Catalina Island Health Foundation, was next.
“I have great confidence that this hospital is going to continue to grow and thrive because of the dedicated leadership and outstanding board of directors [and] professional staff led by Jason to move this organization forward,” he said.
“As many people have said last week’s purpose was to come and ask for the support of this body to help us find permanent solutions for the funding of the day-to-day operations of this hospital,” he said.
“Now you have to remember that in five years 11 months and 16 days this hospital by state law closes down if we do not have a new hospital built,” he said.
“One aspect of that falls directly to the Foundation and that’s what I want to talk about. Jason’s skill set is that here’s an individual—and my background has been in university and healthcare fundraising for 38 years,” he said.
He said he had worked with a lot of CEOs and a lot of college presidents. “This part of the job nobody likes. I doubt if [there is] anybody around the room who would want to go out and ask somebody for a million dollars,” he said.
“It’s tough to do, but we have a leader who actually thrives and goes out and is willing to put in the time and energy to ask people for $1 million, $5 million, $10 million. He’s fearless at what he does. If we get to the position where we have to go out and attract a new CEO, two things will happen: One you may have one who may have no idea on how to go about fundraising the money that’s needed to build a new hospital and second it takes a long runway to bring somebody up to speed to be able to get that work done,” he said.
“So I hope you really think about the way this community reacts to your actions because one thing that donors don’t like is instability, conflict [and] tension. They tend to pull back. They want to see a community united, working together to achieve great results, so please work with this team,” he said.
“Let’s find the solutions we need and let’s move this forward,” he said.
Mayor Anni Marshall said she had to comment “because we’re taking all of this in and we’re listening and we get it.”
Brenda Carol, a former employee of the hospital and a member of what she called the gun club.
“I was held hostage by a person whose dad was dying. They had a 9mm pointed at my head. It was stated if they die I die so, yeah, I do have an idea of what that is like,” she said.
“I was the first one to put my resignation in. Nobody followed anybody. I put mine in for my own personal reasons. There was people that followed suit. We asked for a dialogue,” she said.
“We were not able to achieve that. We all left and moved on,” she said.
“Now I’ve heard that we’re back at it, that it’s our fault that the hospital is in this condition and that we have done nothing for the last 6 months but try to get Jason.
“Jason’s a victim. Okay, I was a victim. Olivia was a victim. Rita was a victim. Gerald was a victim we all got pulled into that whole whirlpool of horrible talk about people, about each of us I mean we were like pariahs in the community to a lot of people that worked at the hospital. They wouldn’t talk to us, they wouldn’t acknowledge us, I mean that’s painful. I mean that’s painful to watch what everybody went through,” she said.
She said it was not just Jason Paret.
“I mean there are a lot of people involved that have gone through months of listening to their names being [dragged] over the coals and they have done or said absolutely nothing. We’re allowed to be angry. We’re allowed our opinion. That’s our First Amendment right. Nobody has said they want Jason or anybody at that hospital hurt injured or any other thing,” she said.
“I’ve never heard that ever in my time. I’ve never heard that so I just want to say as an ex employee I’m a member of this community. I pay taxes. I go up there for my health care I mean, yeah ,I want a facility. I want the town to work together. Do I want to hear Jason’s family being badmouthed? Heck no and I don’t understand why it’s OK for people to say okay don’t talk about,” she said. Yet she had friends in the council chambers that had had their reputations massacred.
“They’ve lost sleep over it. I’ve lost sleep over it, so I think as a community, as a board, I thought you guys asked reasonable questions,” she said.
“I think everybody was a little on guard last week when they came up. I think a little bit everybody was a little sensitive but I think that is your job to ask where is it going. What can we do and then once those points are addressed then we can go to the state,” she said.
“But I think the hospital Jason and John and all those people I mean they need to be involved in going to the state and going why are we not being reimbursed,” she said, apparently referring to state reimbursements to the hospital.
“I mean we are a community you know so anyway that’s my two cents,” she said.
Diane Stone said she just had a couple of things to say.
“I’m sorry that Jason is going through the things that he’s going through, but I want to also say that I was at the city council meeting last week and I appreciated that there were those of you on the council who asked the questions that those of us in this community wanted asked and I think that the board the hospital board is responsible for helping to answer these questions,” she said.
She also said that the CEO is where the buck stops. “So it’s only natural that he’s the one that’s going to have to take the brunt of it,” she said.
Chuck Martin, however, was critical of CEO Paret and supported the council’s questions at the previous meeting.
“Going back 25 or 20 years ago I sold health insurance on the island and at the time and for the next 15 years I probably had 25 businesses and close to 400 people that had health insurance on the island. Today there’s I think three businesses and hardly any individuals and it’s because the only thing the hospital will take are PPOs. People cannot afford a PPO. Look at the pricing today and and I know that I don’t do that anymore. My son doesn’t, but I know that if you talk to Jason or somebody at the hospital said the compensation just isn’t there for HMOs,” Martin said.
He said it worked for 15 years with every other CEO at the hospital.
“I don’t know how many different HMOs or whatever it’s moved to and I know that Theppa they say doesn’t pay their bills and so they don’t want Theppa,” Martin said.
“You know, they’re running the hospital. They’ve got to find ways of making money and more than that they got to find ways of covering people on the island. That’s who lives here, island people and the ones who can afford a PPO they go up there or if you’re on Medicare or maybe Medical but regular people on the island that do have the coverage today,” Martin said.
“If he’s such a great CEO and manager of the hospital, find a way of covering the people here. I mean, we talk to people. People call and they want coverage, you tell them how much it is and what they take and they say oh, thanks,” Martin said.
“I know there are board members who left. I know there there are people at the hospital who’ve left, whether it was on their own or whether he asked them to leave I don’t know, but I think that things aren’t very negotiable,” Martin said.
“I just think that if he’s doing such a wonderful job, show it somehow that we can see it. Don’t attack you guys because you’re asking him questions about why the hospital’s broke,” Martin said.
“His speech the other night said that we make less money than the smallest hospitals in California and he makes more money than any CEO in California,” Martin said.
(He did not say where he got that information.)
Martin said the situation is like “us versus them”.
“I think this needs to be looked at more than just all the praise and accolades,” Martin said.
Catrina Awalt, the board chair of Catalina Island Health spoke next.
“These last couple weeks have just been hell and I’ve never been so disappointed in our council as I was last week. We have worked so hard to find the solutions to help keep our hospital viable forever and after that beautiful presentation last week you didn’t sit down and say thank you, what can we do to help. None of you did that. You immediately just launched into town gossip. You ladies are here as our representatives, you’re not governing with gossip. We are doing our best. Half this room here all work at the hospital and they’re afraid for their jobs because if we can’t get this funding with the help of the city to press our legislators and even the UC systems, we’re going to not be able to build the hospital that we want,” Awalt said.
“We have the funding set up. We’ve got the bond issue set up, we’ve got it all figured out. We’re trying to make it all happen and you guys are coming after a guy’s salary. We’ve never had any a CEO at this hospital like him, who’s made so much, done so many good things for our community. We all kind of forget about when Jason was hired and I’ve been on the board for almost nine years. I’m not a dummy. I ask questions. I always do. But he took our earnings, our yearly earnings were at $8 million, they’re at $18 million,” Awalt said.
“That’s a lot of money to generate and that’s in about five years because we bought the pharmacy, paid the people off, the investors, in record time. We have a physical therapy center. Then we had Covid and you know the on and on and on and on and on but I think you showed him disrespect,” Awalt said.
“All of us, these are all of these people here, you showed us all disrespect and the hospital now is in jeopardy,” Awalt said.
“I think you owe him an apology. Frankly, I think you should all resign, the three of you,” Awalt said. She didn’t specify names.
“The hospital hires over a 100 people as staff and I’ve been talking to all those people for the last week and they’re afraid,” Awalt said.
“They think they’re going to lose their job. Where are they going to get a job paying what they get now here in town? They’re not going to be able to afford to live here. They’re going to have to move. Senior citizens that are here who have come to like being able to go up to the clinic and get proper health care, they’re not going to be able to do that,” Awalt said.
“We just had our boat tickets go up on commuter books. I mean it’s it’s just going to become so expensive and people are going to die,” Awalt said.
“There’s just so many aspects to this. I’m just so upset and if any of you want to talk to me about it you know where to find me,” Awalt said.
“You get furnished with financials every year. You wouldn’t even be able to understand the financials when I first got on the board,” she said.
“There’s so many aspects to it that you have to learn it, yes, and you can’t just look at it and say, oh, you know, like with my business if times are tough, I do tighten my belt, I cut expenses. You can’t do that with the hospital and the paying system,” Awalt said.
“When I sell something in my store I get 100% of the dollars that I asked for. They get 8 cents on a dollar, 40 cents on a dollar, I mean just it’s ridiculous,” Awalt said.
She called on council members to make a sincere public apology to Paret.
“This man spends 14 hours a day working hard to try and get it all done,” Awalt said.
“He’s working to get donors. He’s spending time with all these people,” Awalt said.
“It just goes on and on so call me, come see me think about an apology like tonight and I think it would be a really good thing,” Awalt said.
A woman read a text message from resident Caroline Daly.
Daly wrote that she had grown up here and moved back “after living in different parts of the country and different social and economical backgrounds.”
“It’s sad to see what has come from one meeting. I don’t appreciate being called uneducated by someone that’s not from here nor knows just how many people are educated here,” Daly wrote.
“The comments made at last Council were offered as suggestions and in no way attacking one person,” Daly wrote.
Daly appreciated the questions asked as many community members feel they cannot express their concerns.
“What some people have said on social media went a little too far but that’s on them nor [was it] what was said or done at last week’s [Jan. 9 meeting] council meeting,” Daly wrote.
Apparently addressing the issue of fear that was raised by hospital CEO Paret and others, Daly wrote that she had been held at gunpoint, too. “But never has anyone seen me bring that up to make a situation bigger than it needs to be,” she wrote.
“We all should be focused on the big picture of the hospital not as one aspect of the meeting,” Daly wrote.
The city received two emails about the financial status of Catalina Island Health and three emails about the Jan. 9 meeting.
