LETTERS
Post-mortem on JPS series
Star-Telegram
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I'd like to commend and thank Star-Telegram writer Yamil Berard for her in-depth investigative reporting and excellent journalism in the six-part series on the JPS Health Network, which ran April 27 through Friday.
Having been unwittingly subjected to the callous and inferior treatment at JPS, I (and my family) had a particular interest in this series. It brought a degree of closure to the ordeal.
A special thanks to every reporter at your paper who participated in this endeavor. A job well done.
-- Delbert Cantrell, Fort Worth
Many things in your JPS articles really bothered me. But I guess the most striking was the health network's attitude toward money.
It apparently gleefully charged 10 to 20 times what retail stores charge for the same item, and it threw a large sum of money at a man who had essentially been fired. (See Thursday story "Cecero is out as chief at JPS in Fort Worth.")
And JPS demonstrated a callous attitude toward Medicare/Medicaid patients by charging more than it should because it was like picking money off the vine. (See Thursday story "Hospitals' strategies pull in extra government cash.")
This whole thing showed how medical costs throughout the country are really a sham. The attitude seems to be: "It's just government or insurance company money." And the public is powerless to stop it, even though we're the ones stuck with the taxes and insurance premiums.
Makes you want to put a match to whole thing, doesn't it?
-- Tom Stamey, Fort Worth
Your series on JPS made it seem that the health network never does anything right.
I agreed with most of the issues raised in the series, but it wasn't fair for you to focus only on the negatives. Now that you've brought down a powerful CEO, I challenge you to do a six-part series on the good that JPS does.
Yes, our county hospital has thousands of problems, and each one needs to be fixed. Yes, perhaps a new leader can turn it around to the way it used to be when JPS truly served the poor.
I hope that the next CEO has a charitable heart instead of a heart full of dollar signs. I wonder if anyone told David Cecero when he was hired that JPS was not a for-profit retail establishment.
I've been a patient (mostly outpatient) at JPS for 35 years. Maybe I'm lucky, but I've received excellent care at every level. But after reading your scathing series, I wonder why I'm still alive and healthy. I should be dead after allowing such an inadequate facility to take care of me.
One glaring omission in your series was failure to critique the pharmacy. It's one of the worst parts of the JPS system.
One example: The pharmacy won't let us order refills until five days before our medications run out. But it often takes seven days or more to get the refills. Some patients need a continuous supply of life-or-death medications. The pharmacy seems to operate independently, with an air of indifference, as if it's not part of a patient-care facility.
I hope your series will prompt those officials in charge to act aggressively to fix the hospital's problems so you'll have plenty of material for your series on JPS's positive aspects.
-- Joyce Noble, Fort Worth
The only place you should see blood and bone fragments on the floor is a butcher shop.
As chief nursing officer, Adonna Lowe should be familiar with such terms as cleanliness, sterile, hospital-acquired infection, cross-contamination and, most important, mop and bucket. (See Friday story "JPS officials respond to criticism.")
When I worked in operating rooms, nurses helped with room turnovers and mopped floors. Why? No one is above pushing a mop when it comes to patient safety and quick turnovers.
-- Lisa Roby Knight, Fort Worth
The Friday editorial "Bitter pills" and Bud Kennedy's Friday column "Lay blame for JPS where it belongs," summed up very nicely the six-day series exposing problems at JPS Health Network.
The newspaper's investigative reporters turned out a superlative series from prologue to epilogue. Thank you, Star-Telegram, and all involved in this series.
-- Donald Maskell, Fort Worth
