We owe the Bangor Daily News a debt of gratitude for exposing the way the leadership of Eastern Maine Medical Center and its affiliates has “quietly been altering” its organization to disenfranchise the communities to which it owes its very existence; the same communities that have given tens of millions of dollars over the past years to nurture it.

Until now, the community has exerted influence over the hospital through the corporators. The corporators are citizens who exert control through their power to nominate and approve the members of the boards. Ordinarily, this is a mere formality; however, because the concern over self-replication of the board, last year the corporators nominated two members not on the list of the board’s nominating committee. They won handily and should have displaced the board nominees whom they defeated, but in a clear act of disdain for the intent of the corporators the board merely increased its size by two to allow their defeated compatriots to remain.

The secrecy, overall lack of transparency and disdain for stakeholders that we see in the management and boards of EMMC are precisely what caused the abuses in the Enron and WorldCom business failures. The public was deeply damaged and insisted that laws be written to protect against abuses by insiders. Apparently, the law does not apply to nonprofits such as EMMC, yet the same principles to apply.

As a community we have created EMMC and have a share in it in every sense of the term. Yet the new Eastern Maine HealthCare Systems organization will give enormous power to a small self-selected group of individuals (some of whom have a business relationship with the hospital) who will operate in secrecy and with no accountability to the public.

Irving Kagan, the chairman of EMHS, the super board which will reign over the affiliates, one of which is EMMC, told the BDN that maintaining traditional community oversight is no longer efficient or effective. He offered no justification for this conclusion. It is suspect when contrasted with what goes on at Maine Medical Center in Portland, the largest and premier tertiary care center in Maine.

The executive vice president of MMC, Francis McGinty, told the BDN that corporators are “indispensable” and “protect the mission of the institution.” Protection of the mission of EMMC has never been more important nor has it ever been in such jeopardy as it is today.

The proposed reorganization at the hospital has been finished under the radar screen of the public by a small coterie of influential individuals at the highest levels of management and the board. This is a community organization that is out of the control of the community. The adage “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” has never been truer than it is today. We should come together to prevent this from occurring in our community.

John J. McDevitt IV, a resident of Winterport, is a physician at Gastroenterology Associates of Eastern Maine.