October 31, 2024

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Laurie Kelly, Save South County Hospital

401-932-7118

Steven Fera, MD,  Save South County Hospital

401-523-5095

SOUTH KINGSTOWN - The Save South County Hospital advocacy group today is sharply criticizing the ongoing misrepresentations, inaccuracies, and hostile demeanor of hospital leadership in what was supposed to be a “community” forum last night.

Save South County Hospital is now rallying its members and the broader community to demand immediate action and renewed its call for the removal of Board of Trustees Chairman Joseph Matthews and hospital President Aaron Robinson. 

This newly formed non-profit health services advocacy group is calling on its supporters, community members, all donors and others to email the remaining members of the hospital’s Board of Trustees (see list below), insisting on the removal of Matthews and Robinson for failed leadership and neglect of community concerns on this issue that has festered for over a year.

Hospital leaders have driven out doctors, overseen an exodus of doctors and staff from a community-cherished cancer center, and disregarded the voices of nearly 2,000 concerned residents, donors and other community hospital supporters calling for accountability.

A public recording of last night's meeting was also live-streamed and was quickly made private in an apparent attempt to hide the backlash and suppress evidence of mounting opposition. The video now marked this afternoon "Video Unavailable" and not available on the hospital's website symbolizes a disturbing and continuing lack of transparency.

Action by the remaining trustees is urgent. Residents protested trustee inaction last night, and hundreds more have joined Save South County Hospital’s mission to preserve this vital community resource.

Save South County Hospital, following hospital leadership's own meeting confirming our complaints, now is asking supporters email remaining trustees to confront their past inaction and take responsibility for months of unresolved critical issues, especially since key cancer center staff resignations.

Among the many examples of misrepresentations, inaccuracies and contentious and brusque manner of Matthews and Robinson, the remaining trustees - who have not yet spoken publicly - were witness to:

• The executive compensation question that was dodged, and there was no clear explanation for Aaron Robinson's significant $800,000 salary and loss of $6 million. What company pays that amount to its top leader when huge deficits keep recurring? .
• The misleading portrayal of the cardiology partnership with Care New England; cardiologists resigned, forcing SCH into reactive negotiations and ignoring key support requests.
• No explanation for the failure to prevent the departure of oncology staff; the lack of a strategic plan jeopardized the Cancer Center's future.
• CEO criticized for adversarial, toxic management style; panelists feigned ignorance of workplace issues. CEO demonstrated his adversarial attitude in exchange with a state legislator who has a voice in hospital funding.
• There is no clear strategic plan for the hospital’s future and no realistic disclosure of actual willing  partners for the merger as the leadership team cheapens the assets by having growing discontent in the community, loss of confidence in the operations, and fleeing donors and contributions.

The remaining trustees are smart, intelligent and sophisticated individuals employed in business and finance, law, leaders at the University of Rhode Island, a former state legislator, and doctors and nurses.

It is time for these remaining trustees to either step up or step out should they fear a take-no-prisoners and intransigent attitude of Trustees Chairman Matthews and Hospital President Robinson. 

The following are the trustees' email addresses as we have ascertained:

Joseph F. Matthews

Chairman

jmatthews@maxsonautomatic.com

James L. Farrell, Treasurer

jlf1066@gmail.com

Noah Benedict, MHL

Secretary

nbenedict@ripcpc.com

Betty Rambur, Ph.D., R.N.

Treasurer

Brambur@uri.edu

Robert Bierwirth, MD

President of the Medical Staff, Ex-officio

Robert.bierwirth@gialliance.com

Peter Graves, Vice President of the Medical Staff, Ex-officio

pgraves@schealth.org

Robert K. Dyer, MD

bobkdyer@gmail.com

Rogean Makowski

rbmakowski@gmail.com,

Jason Marshall

jason@marshall-law.com

Michael McCaffrey

attorneys@mccaffreylawri.com

Rick Norberg

rnorberg@vetikal6.com

Austin C. Smith

smithaust@gmail.com

Victoria Wicks

vicwick@gmail.com

Barbara Wolfe, PhD, MSN, BSN

Bwolfe@uri.edu