By Joel Langton
The 830 Times
Community members and at least one board member are voicing concerns that the Val Verde Regional Medical Center District Board is rushing into hiring a new chief executive officer.
The board is set to meet in a special session at noon Friday in the hospital conference room to interview applicants and possibly vote on a new CEO. Presently, they have two applicants.
Linda Walker, the former CEO, resigned Oct. 12 after being placed on paid leave for 14 days during an internal investigation.
Afterwards, she gave the board a resignation letter, and the board gave her a six-figure severance package. At that time, the board appointed Jorge Jurado, the chief operations officer, as the interim CEO. After Jurado’s appointment, one board member lauded him for his efforts during Wednesday’s board meeting.
“Jorge, you’ve done an amazing job,” said Raul Alatorre, District 3 board member, after Jurado had read the interim CEO’s report. “We couldn’t have asked anyone to do a better job.”
Jurado is one of the two applicants for the CEO position.
Some board members say they had hoped for a thorough, nation-wide search for a new CEO. What they got was a four-day posting, Jan. 10 through 14, on the hospital’s website announcing the search for a new chief executive.
The posting met the legal requirements, but some said they wanted more.
“The manner the human resources department advertised for the CEO position is questionable. If the HR department has in the past used employment agency programs like Indeed.com, why wouldn’t they use that service for this position? The community deserves as many applicants as possible so the board can hire the best possible CEO,” said Sandra Fuentes, co-chair of The Border Organization, an activist group that had addressed hospital issues in the past.
The hospital’s board’s three-person executive committee approved the advertising plan and some members of the seven-person hospital board weren’t aware the search had even begun.
“I didn’t even find out we had started the hiring process for a new CEO until I was notified about the special board meeting,” said Dr. Lee Keenen, an at-large board member. An at-large board member represents the entire district versus a specific precinct.
Keenen spoke during the public comments portion of the meeting.
“I don’t think all seven of us got together in a room and decided we were going to hire a CEO,” Keenen said.
“I would have liked to have known how long it was going to be advertised, where it was going to be advertised or whether we were going to advertise regionally, nationally … but I don’t know if the three executive people (officers of the board), the president, the vice chair and the secretary can unilaterally decide to do this,” he added.
Some community members agree with Keenen.
“We are asking the board to cancel Friday’s specially called board meeting and advertise nationally for at least two weeks,” said Irma Cardenas, a leader with The Border Organization. “We believe the advertising for the CEO position was poorly handled. To advertise for this extremely important position for only four days on the hospital website is a travesty. We only have two applicants. Our community deserves an extensive nationwide search. Maybe one of the two applicants is best for this position, but we don’t know that until we’ve cast out a wider net,” Cardenas said.
However, the hospital board chairman said a wider net wasn’t an option.
“What people don’t understand is our hospitals are at a crossroads if they are going to even survive,” said Dr. Julio Otazo, chairman of the board. “Mr. Jurado has been on the job for four months. He’s from here, he understands this community, the board likes him, and the hospital employees genuinely like him and he is doing a great job.”
The writer can be reached at JoelaLangton@gmail.com .
