Leadership and communications

Iwill again address the issue of the El Centro Regional Medical Center in the column but from an entirely different perspective, given recent developments surrounding the matter.

Simply put, El Centro Council members – who in turn serve as members of the ECRMC Board of Directors – have shown weakness, annoyance, serious miscommunications, and lax leadership, at least until before the recent press conference.

If they had informed the public about the internal financial and operational problems of the hospital from the beginning, they would have saved themselves a lot of headaches. However, despite the fact that several council members have been involved in political activity for years, they demonstrated a blunder and were almost childish, forgetting that communication is power.

First, they told the public that local OB/GYN services were being merged with those of Pioneers Memorial Hospital, only to be later revealed by Brawley hospital officials that they were, in fact, merely informed of the closure of the expensive and little-used services in El Centro. Earlier, the local authorities decided to remove the previous managers of the hospital, including the CEO, to take over the functions of the board of directors and appoint a consultant as head of the hospital.

Given the information vacuum, the rumors did not wait. In addition, it should be added that there was personnel from the maternal and child services who lost their jobs because they could not be relocated to another hospital, at least temporarily.

Authorities then announced a notification to cancel the designation as a base hospital, which serves to guide emergency personnel in transporting patients, leading the public to think of the end of emergency services. To make the situation worse, the day after the announcement and having detonated the panic bomb among the community, the same authorities affirmed that the request had been rescinded.

The seriousness of the matter forced the County, within whose jurisdiction the Emergency Medical Services of the region are located, to intervene, by calling an event where the situation and possible future solutions were analyzed to maintain hospital services in the Imperial Valley.

As the local authorities clearly stated during the press conference held at the El Centro hospital, the poor financial situation is not new. The most serious problem was that the matter was publicly known until the authorities reacted. That is, the actions have not been proactive, but reactive. And that is a very serious sign of weakness.

In that same press conference, the authorities asked for the people’s trust by calling residents to avoid paying attention to rumors circulating mainly on social media. At the event, council members affirmed that all the information concerning the situation of the hospital is found on their official Internet sites. In theory, a good citizen concerned about the problem will go to read documents and listen to statements from the authorities on the subject in order to be well informed. But let’s be honest: the majority of people go home to have a beer or coffee, have dinner, do some household activities, watch television, and rest to be ready to return to the routine the next day.

And let us not forgot that as a news organization under the same roof, prior to that, the mayor had been dodging the calls and not giving any answers to IV Press reporters for weeks. Prior to the most recent press conference, she touted that ‘ the City would like the public to have accurate information’ once the board finally decided to start talking about it publicly and holding said conferences – conferences which began happening after the constant social media buzz prompted IVP to begin printing articles regarding what was being said, regardless of how silent the board had been to that point. At that time, the only official statement made by El Centro came from its city manager rather than any hospital board member or the mayor, who, again, had been questioned but had not given any answers to IVP for weeks. The “accurate information” claim was far too little and far too late.

If El Centro had real leaders in charge of local government all that information should have been disseminated before taking any action that affects the hospital and the community. This is the duty and responsibility, not only of local authorities, but of all those who have been elected by the voter or who is in charge of far-reaching decisions that impact the community for which they work.