Exactly what message did EMMC receive?

I will confess, I grew up in the ’60s. It was a time when we learned to “question authority” and never automatically accept the answer provided.

At the fateful final meeting of the Eastern Maine Healthcare incorporators (when we voted ourselves out of existence), we listened to impassioned words from George Eaton and others about how regional organizations that had tentatively agreed to join Eastern Maine Health Systems had insisted on regional representation.

We heard Tim Garity of Blue Hill Memorial Hospital tell us how he was on the way to his board meeting directly from this one to vote on joining EMHS. We heard how, though not perfect, the EMHS plan was “the best they could do.” Based on those words, the incorporators by a very narrow margin passed 100 years of control over to an EMHS board that would be subject to diluted community oversight through a new group of Members (the revised name for corporators).

The Bangor Daily News editorialized that the good governance committee’s work had not been for nothing, that the message had been sent, that EMHS, as newly constituted now had a responsibility to respond to that message for good governance from the community.

Respond they have.

The recent mailing to the community and the BDN article of April 29 contain that response. On the page facing the photo of a “cabinet” is the confession that after months of searching, out of the 1.2 million people in Maine, EMHS could not find 200 people “qualified” to be in the new group of members.

The mailing announced that the solution would be, without any oversight or approval, to change the recently approved plan and drop unilaterally the requirement that the Members group be geographically dispersed. Miracle of miracles, the revised plan was approved unanimously by those new members that EMHS had appointed.

The slim approval ending corporator oversight that had directed the region’s community’s major health organization for 100 years has now led to a health system governed by a star chamber (a board that can perpetuate itself by replacing corporators by appointing a new, nonrepresentative group of members who will rubber stamp board decisions). None of this surprises this child of the sixties, but where is the uproar? Why not so much as a word from our other community organization: the BDN? Does no one really care?

My answer to my own question is yes. In the ’60s the leaders did not control the result, the masses (their community) did. Question Authority became the mantra. It is time for the healthcare community itself to take the lead. Throughout this debacle, the one thing all parties have agreed on is the quality and commitment of the people who provide healthcare at EMMC. They, not the leadership, are EMMC. They, not the leadership, are the answer. What will carry us forward is the commitment of these people. I call upon them to act, quietly for some, loudly for others; individually and in groups; publicly and privately; openly and behind closed doors. This is how we learned to effect change and it works. Debbie Johnston, the new chief executive officer, can set the tone and influence the timing, but she cannot stop the flow.

This institution will be responsive to the community because this institution is the community. It is not the board, the “cabinet” or the so-called members. They only have the privilege and responsibility of leadership. When leaders drift apart from those they presume to lead, change does occur.

The people become the leaders. It is change that we need now.

Bangor accountant Jeffry W. Fitch is a member of the Good Governance Group and a former EMH incorporator.