by Roger Allen Sr.

 

The Tax-Exempt Compliance Unit of the Internal Revenue Service (in other words, the IRS) was asked to investigate, and has recently formally acknowledged it’s investigation of the Effingham Hospital Authority’s for it’s hiring of Mrs. Norma Jean Morgan as the new Chief Executive Officer. More specifically, they are looking into the rationale and justification for paying her the salary she currently receives.

Being that the hospital is a tax-exempt organization, there are very strict guidelines about A) how much you can pay executive officers, and B) what regulations members of elected boards must follow in awarding pay and compensation to their senior administrative employees.

In addition, the State Attorney General’s Office has been asked to, and has just formally acknowledged their investigation of the Effingham Hospital Authority for its failure to comply with official Open Records requests. These were made for documents pertaining to A) the selection and then hiring of Mrs. Norma Jean Morgan by the Hospital Authority as their new CEO, and B) the report and other documents pertaining to the investigation of both the Hospital Authority by the Joint Commission of the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO).

Their response to numerous requests for these documents has been to deny any knowledge of their existence. However, on at least one occasion, they finally admitted after the second or third request that they possessed the documents, and then produced them.

There have several very high profile departures of long-term Effingham Hospital Employees recently. They include: Sherry May, Director of Nursing at the Effingham Hospital Extended Care Center; Nancy Brown, who left her position as the Business Office Manager at Effingham Hospital; and Jimmy Gordon, who served as former Assistant Nursing Home Administrator & Safety Officer & Head of Housekeeping and Laundry, whom after being removed by Mrs. Morgan from the Assistant Nursing Director’s position has also left the hospital’s employment.

In more new employee news, Ed Brown, the former Chief Financial Officer of Effingham Hospital leased from Memorial Hospital, has signed an agreement with Effingham Hospital to stay on as a private contractor. He will probably work at the hospital three days a week. Claudette Jordan has been hired as the Director of Nursing and Clinical Services to replace recently-departed Chief Nursing Officer Janet Taylor. Mrs. Jordan has many years of nursing experience but lacks the advanced educational degrees required for the now-deleted Chief Nursing Officer’s position, hence the new title.                 

There will be a one-day retreat organized by Effingham Hospital CEO Mrs. Norma Jean Morgan for the members of the Effingham Hospital Authority at the river home of Authority Chairman C. Murray Kight this weekend. Led by Marie McIntyre, PhD, author of Management Team Handbook and a private consultant, this workshop will focus on helping the Authority to work as a cohesive force rather than a collection of individual entities. This retreat will also count towards earning the Authority members educational units that are required in order for them to continue to sit on the Authority.

Finally, there will be a memorial service to honor Dr. Ray Webb’s organized by local columnist and historian Ruth Lee and Dr. Webb’s family members at Effingham Hospital this weekend at 3 p.m. on March 26th. Dr. Webb had served many of the residents of Effingham County as their personal physician since the mid 1950’s, and was instrumental in getting the Effingham County Commissioners to start the hospital to begin with. There will be the unveiling of a plaque commemorating Dr. Webb as the great man that he was.