Syringa board member Cleary resigns after seven months

Jan. 5—GRANGEVILLE — Joel Cleary of Grangeville, a retired physician, said he began attending Syringa General Hospital board meetings six months before deciding to run for the board last May.

After only seven months, Cleary handed in his resignation, effective last week on Dec. 31, citing incivility among board members and a lack of transparency about what Cleary believes is a dire financial situation.

"The biggest thing," Cleary said, explaining his resignation, "was financial integrity. It was my impression the hospital was going broke. We lost $2 million the year before and we're continuing to lose money."

Cleary said elected board members have been less than forthright about the financial situation with taxpayers who support the hospital, likening it to "rearranging the deck chairs of the Titanic."

Syringa board chairperson Laura Smith and Chief Executive Officer Abner King addressed some of Cleary's accusations. Smith said in a prepared statement that "although Joel only served on our board for seven months, his background, knowledge and experience will be missed."

She said the remaining elected board members will appoint a trustee to fill the vacancy until the next hospital district election in May 2025.

King said that Syringa "faces the same financial challenges that most hospitals around the country are dealing with. Workforce shortages and inflation have significantly increased our costs while reimbursement for our services is not improving. Even so, we remain committed to providing the medical services that our community needs and we will continue to work hard to meet those needs."

Syringa has faced a number of challenges recently, including terminating the six-year management agreement with Kootenai Health of Coeur d'Alene. That decision in November followed an investigation by the Idaho attorney general's office and the Federal Trade Commission that expressed concerns about unfair competitive practices between Syringa and St. Mary's Health in Cottonwood. St. Mary's is owned by Kootenai Health. King was jointly employed by Kootenai Health until the management agreement ended. He is now Syringa's employee.

Cleary said the board was aware of the state and federal investigation months before it was made public. King's dual role, Cleary believes, prompted the investigation because it posed a clear conflict of interest.

"I wasn't briefed on this until after the election," he said. "I was angry (because of the) fiduciary responsibility. If I had known, it might have changed my mind" about running for the board.

Syringa also has been under fire from the former hospital chief, Joe Cladouhos, following the recent suicide death of an employee at the hospital. Cladouhos urged the board at the last meeting in December to initiate an outside investigation — a practice, he said, that is standard procedure in most other states. The board has not commented on Cladouhos's remarks.

Cleary also said the board hired a consultant for $100,000 to review major infrastructure problems and suggest what needed to be fixed.

The latest estimate for an infrastructure update, he said, was $8.4 million and that does not include the costs of any new services.

"And that's a conservative estimate," he said. "The hospital has $7 million in the bank. We'll have to have financing for that but they (the board) don't want people to know about that.

"If the hospital continues to lose money and we spend a large part of our savings for our (facility) updates, plus still have to redo the procedure room to turn it into an (operating room) ... then our bank account is going down," Cleary said.

King said the oldest part of the hospital was built 85 years ago; the newest portion is more than 35 years old.

"Much of that original infrastructure is still in place and is adequately serving the hospital and clinic," King said. "We engaged a firm this past year to develop a plan to modernize our facilities and this plan calls for significant upgrades to environmental systems like heating and cooling. We are currently exploring multiple options, including major grants, to finance these upgrades while we continue to serve our patients."

Cleary also maintains that whenever he has expressed concerns or opposition to some of the board's actions, he has been met with hostility, name-calling and yelling from some other board members.

Smith acknowledged that some of the exchanges in recent board meetings have become heated. She said the trustees developed a code of conduct and tried to follow those guidelines, but the debates have occasionally gotten out of hand, in spite of her efforts to contain them.

Cleary said he hopes by making his reasons for resigning public he can encourage others to pay attention to what's going on at the hospital and consider running for the board themselves.

"My loyalty wasn't to the board," Cleary said. "My loyalty was to the community. I believe in transparency and the community needs to learn there is debate.

"The reason I resigned is obvious. My proposals aren't going to be considered seriously and there's no point in me being on the board. Community members need to attend the board meetings and they need to be on the public comment agenda."

Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune.com.