Native American Press/Ojibwe News

Health care in Minneapolis: Conflict at IHB continues

By Clara NiiSka - March 15, 2002
Public conflict has erupted again at the Phillips neighborhood clinic at 1315 East 24th Street in south Minneapolis. On March 4th, Indian Health Board Clinic (IHB) treasurer and board of directors member Stephanie Autumn resigned.

Autumn wrote in her letter of resignation, “I find myself questioning board process and protocol … The Board has not kept their word and commitment to staff and community …” She concluded, “Indian Health Board was founded on Indigenous thought, philosophy and practices, to not recognize and afford staff opportunities to repair the discord internally, find commonalities and solutions with Board and the community that we serve may be the final undoing for the organization.”

Dated March 8th, eight IHB staff and former staff wrote a joint letter to MUID (Minneapolis Urban Indian Directors), asking MUID “for your assistance in protecting IHB from destruction.” The IHB staff detailed key grievances, and sought the help of MUID in organizing community meetings to address the problems at the long-troubled clinic. The medical practitioners reportedly went to MUID with the backing of Clyde Bellecourt and Franny Fairbanks, asking for “help” from the urban Indian directors in “to sponsor an open meeting to air these issues with the community.”

Press/ON made a number of phone calls. Kim Mammedaty, chair of the IHB board of directors, called back just as this newspaper was going to press. IHB Acting Director Penny Scheffler did not respond. Resigning IHB treasurer Stephanie Autumn did not respond.

Mammedaty answered Press/ON’s questions precisely. “In response to Stephanie Autumn’s letter” of resignation, she said, “my understanding is that it was widely distributed. I think that is unfortunate … I was surprised by the letter from Stephanie. She has been a very active board member.” Mammedaty said that “perhaps” Autumn “had some expectations” in which she was disappointed. “Maybe she did not understand her role as a board member of a nonprofit. … Board members have a legal obligation.” Mammedaty said that she was “sad and surpised” that Autumn’s letter had circulated in the community to the extent that it had.

The Chair of the IHB board responed to the March 8th letter to MUID by saying that “there are a number of inaccurate statements in the letter.” She said that the board is working on a response to the letter, which “should be ready by next week.”

Mammedaty added, “I would also like to say that we are having a difficult time.” She said that among the most pressing goals of the board were to find a permanent executive director for IHB, and that hopefully the candidate would be selcted “sometime in April.”

She also said that the IHB board of directors “has the support of the funding agencies,” and that the IHB hopes to “continue fulfilling our mission … being an even better clinic.”

Acting IHB Clinic Director Dr. Terril Hart – nickname Terry Hart – told Press/ON that there were “factual errors” in the letter to MUID, including that his nickname is spelled with a “y” rather than an “i,” he said. The March 8th letter included the comment that, “it is suspected that the Board has already promised [Hart] the Executive Director position …” Hart denied that allegation, saying that he had applied for the job, but “… that was on my own,” and that he has “not been interviewed,” he has not been offered the job, and that he didn’t know if he would accept it if he were.

Hart also contested the eight letter-writers’ statement that, “We are unable to provide full service in the laboratory without adequate staffing or a qualified lab director.” According to Hart, “the lab decreased its services for about 48 hours,” but that it is now “back up to full bore – all lab services delivered as before.” Hart declined to comment on other issues raised in the March 8th letter.

Hart, who is in the difficult position of having been hired to ‘replace’ the popular Dr. Lydia Caros – fired by the IHB board – told Press/ON, “I do not have any agenda.” He is concerned about helping resolve the problems at IHB, but said, “whether that’s possible I don’t know. Trust has been destroyed on all sides.” Hart – like everyone else in the worsening situation at IHB, stressed that “patient care is the only priority. What other reason would we have to exist?”

Former Director Dr. Lydia Caros, whose firing catalyzed outspoken statement of dissatisfaction by numerous IHB staff and who since her dismissal has acted as a spokesperson for a number of staff and former staff, told Press/ON that the situation at IHB is continuing to deteriorate. It is getting “harder and harder for the staff to provide good care … harder to do the job we’re trying to do. We can’t maintain the level of follow-up, the efficiency that we can with a full staff.”

Caros also said that MUID had “passed a resolution to sponsor a community forum” addressing the problems at IHB, “within a month.” She told this writer that Clyde Bellecourt “talked about the importance of IHB in the community,” as did Bill Means and Lyle Iron Moccasin, and that “Franny Fairbanks said that she had patients [of the clinic] come and complain to her” about the deteriorating care.

She indicated that the ongoing conflict at IHB is “all because the board does not want to listen to what the staff has to say – they are not trying to work things out. … This isn’t right. This isn’t the way to run a clinic, or to treat staff, or to provide health care.”

Caros, like Hart, said that she wanted to deal with the problems at the clinic “constructively,” and that her priority was the quality of care available to IHB patients.

Dr. Mitchell La Combe, also one of the signers of the March 8th letter to MUID, told Press/ON that the primary concerns were ‘pretty well stated’ in the letter, and that the intent was “trying to get the community involved in the clinic,” holding an “open forum to discuss” the problems.

La Combe stressed accountability and openness: “Open the books, policies, and procedures. Let’s see how the board is running the clinic, where the finances are going. … Why will they not stand up and defend their policies, why won’t they tell us what their policies are? Who is this board accountable to?”

“Why is everything so hidden?” La Combe asked. The IHB Board of Directors is accountable only to itself, he said, “nobody oversees it. No audits are made public, nobody knows how it operates. If it’s all justified, why can’t it be made known?”

La Combe summarized, “What we asking for is better patient care, and for the resources and backing to supply that care for our patients. That is our main issue.

“We want the best possible patient care for our patients, and that’s what we are after. And, that’s why we want to open everything up to the community.”

Dr. Carol Krush responded to Press/ON’s phone calls just as this edition was going to press. “I’m hopeful to have a community forum” to address the problems which beset IHB, Krush said. “I’m still hoping to have Dr. Caros back as medical director.” She also stressed the importance of “a fair selection process” in choosing a board of directors for IHB.