Hospital board fires CEO, cites allegation

The Broward Health board abruptly fired CEO Pauline Grant on Thursday because she is alleged to have received illegal kickbacks.

The 4-1 vote, with board member Maureen Canada dissenting, took place at a meeting that had been announced late the previous afternoon, with no indication on the agenda that allegations against Grant or her possible firing would be discussed.

Grant, who had been in the position just since March, insisted there was no substance to the charges, which the board did not describe in any specifics.

“As far as the allegations are concerned, I never did anything wrong,” she told the board.

After the meeting, Grant said the allegation was of kickbacks from a physician who wanted to get on an oncall schedule in 2015, while she had been CEO of Broward Health North. She said the allegation was not that she profited, but that her hospital did. Either way, she said, it is false.

In her place, the board appointed chief operating officer Kevin Fusco, who had been deposed as acting CEO in March after complaints from employees of administrative chaos and an atmosphere of fear under his administration. The board intends to have Fusco serve until it hires a management company and, eventually, a new CEO.

The board’s decision to fire Grant further destabilizes a public hospital system that has lurched from crisis to crisis since last year. The tax-supported system, which operates five hospitals and various clinics, was forced to pay a federal fine of nearly $70 million over illegal payments to physicians, experienced the suicide earlier this year of CEO Dr. Nabil El Sanadi and has been probed by state and federal investigators.

Thursday’s action took place after Broward Health general counsel Lynn Barrett hired two outside law firms to review Grant’s actions and advise Broward Health on what to do.

“They conducted an independent investigation and they advised of their conclusion that there is a probable violation of the federal antikickback statute, and that Ms. Grant is implicated in that matter,” she said.

She said she could provide no details in public.

“This could become a criminal investigation, so I’m going to be very limited in what I can say,” she said.

Grant said Barrett blindsided her with both the accusations and the legal assault on her Thursday. In October, she said, she went to a meeting with Barrett and was surprised to find three lawyers there to question her about the matter.

“The next thing I know, I was in a meeting this morning with Lynn and the gentleman who spoke earlier,” she said, referring to an outside lawyer who was hired to assess the allegations. "The meeting was to talk about compliance issues. I didn’t know this was going to be discussed. The first thing the attorney asked me was whether I had an attorney. I said why would I need an attorney? Did I do something wrong? And then they shared with me that this was going to be brought up at this meeting.”

Board member Linda Robison, appointed to the board in April by Gov. Rick Scott, made the motion to replace Grant, saying a hospital system under federal oversight, as Broward Health is, could not afford to have a CEO under a cloud of possible criminality.

Robison invoked the word of the two outside law firms hired by Barrett to back up the need to fire Grant.

“We have to take corrective action in order to protect the institution,” she said. “There’s no way that our CEO can be under criminal investigation and still be in charge of the facilities.”

After the meeting, Robison refused repeatedly to describe the charges or say whether she was familiar with the details. She also refused to say why the board didn’t take a less severe action, such as suspension, while investigating the charges.

Board member Christopher Ure also refused to describe the allegations or say whether he was familiar with the details.

Burnadette NorrisWeeks, a lawyer who said she came to the meeting on short notice to represent Grant, accused the board of harming her client’s reputation with vague allegations and violating the state’s open-meetings law by failing to provide public notice of the meeting’s true purpose.

“It’s a violation of the Sunshine Law,” Norris-Weeks said. “Something like this, the public should be aware of. … To smear her reputation of all of these years and all of the service she’s given to this district, is unconscionable.”

As for the board’s motivations, Grant said she thought members wanted to replace her with someone more malleable regarding the system’s operations.

Canada, Grant’s only defender on the board, said, “I don’t think this board should prosecute or condemn or be hasty to make decisions or judgments about our CEO, who has been employed by this district for many, many years, is a woman of integrity, professionalism, and someone that I have admired and have had the pleasure to work with for the past two years.”

By late Friday afternoon, a few hours after the meeting ended, Canada said she had received many calls from Broward Health employees upset at the news.