CEO Moses said he’s
leaving St. Luke’s hospital
By TRAVIS
PURSER
Express Staff Writer
Jon Moses,
the CEO who oversaw the construction of St. Luke’s Wood River Medical
Center and the transformation of the hospital from a county-run to a
privately run facility, said Monday that his employment with St. Luke’s
has ended.
"Yes,
that is the case," he said.
Moses,
executives from St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center in Boise and the
community board, which oversees the Wood River Valley branch of St. Luke’s,
met Monday to negotiate a possible new deal between Moses and the
hospital, said Kerry George, manager of public relations for St. Luke’s
Wood River Medical Center.
A meeting
of the same people also occurred on Thursday, she said, the same day that
the St. Luke’s branch in Boise notified St. Luke’s Wood River
employees that Moses could be leaving.
"We’re
doing everything we can to talk to Jon, and if it’s decided that (his
employment) will end, we’ll make it as smooth as possible for
everyone," George said.
Moses was
not available to receive telephone calls at the hospital on Friday and
Monday. Theresa Bush, director of nursing, and six other department
directors, were filling in for Moses until he either returned or a
permanent replacement was found, George said. However, a search for a
replacement had not yet begun.
Neither
Moses nor George would reveal why he might be leaving his job as CEO.
George said
that Moses had not been fired and that Moses’ leaving was not related to
the hospital’s financial loss of $1.5 million on a budget of $22 million
last year.
Moses said
that he might be able to discuss the status of his employment further when
the negotiations end, possibly sometime this week.
It would be
unwise to "jump to any conclusions" before then, said Wood River
community board chairman Preston Strazza.
The Wood
River Medical Center board of trustees, which oversaw the hospital when it
was county-owned, approved St. Luke’s hiring of Moses in the winter of
1997-1998. Former County Commissioner Len Harlig, who was a board member
then, said Moses was hired with the transition to St. Luke’s and the
construction of a new hospital in mind.
The
Boise-based St. Luke’s began planning the 32-bed facility in 1996, when
county residents voted to replace the aging, publicly run Wood River
Medical Center.
Philanthropists
contributed more than $18 million for the construction of and transition
to the new 110,000-square-foot building, which opened two miles south of
Ketchum on Nov. 19, 2000.
But the
project was controversial.
Moses, and
St. Luke’s, encountered criticism from, among others, Blaine County
Citizens for Smart Growth, a land-use advocacy group that accused hospital
planners of arrogantly disregarding the county’s zoning rules.
Physicians
decried St. Luke’s ousting of staff and services that resulted in the
loss of Dr. Alice Police, a specialist in breast care and one of the
valley’s three general surgeons. Several other physicians and numerous
staff either left the hospital or were not offered new contracts during
the transition.
Moses was
at the center of another controversy in May 2000 when the Blaine County
Planning and Zoning Commission denied St. Luke’s application to build a
38,000-square-foot medical office building next to the hospital. Moses
said the hospital would not be financially viable without the building.
The county approved a revised application in the fall of 2001, and
construction began soon after that.
In part
because of the new building, Moses said in November that he expected
hospital revenues to exceed losses by about $900,000 this year.
As at any
hospital, new needs and challenges constantly arise, he said in November,
reflecting on the hospital’s first year, but "I think the future of
this hospital is very bright."