The process for Dr. Greg Salard to possibly regain privileging at Wrangell Medical Center began last week during a closed-door executive session meeting of the WMC Board of Directors.
On Wednesday, Oct. 3, the board met for review and possible action regarding his credentialing at the hospital. Salard lost his bid to retain his interim privileging after the previous WMC board voted on April 15, 2011 to suspend his privileges at the hospital.
Because of an Alaska State law excluding reporting actions regarding credentialing matters, WMC board president Woody Wilson declined to state any discussion or action taken during the meeting.
According to a source close to the case, however, the board may have discussed having Salard sign a contract, before reconsideration, promising that he will not sue over any outcome – including denial of privileges – before they would move forward on whether he can regain a chance to work in the hospital.
He would also have to drop his current lawsuit.
In a Sept. 27 reply brief filing by Salard’s attorney, Lee Holen of Anchorage, he alleges that his suspension of privileging was an act of retaliation by former administrator Noel Rea over issues the physician had raised regarding what he considered mismanagement at the hospital.
“This is a clear case of retaliation against a doctor for making statements in good faith about matters of patient safety and concern at WMC,” Holen said. “From the moment Salard resigned as Trauma Director and complained about Rea and his management, and then made a report about these concerns to the Assembly in April of 2012, WMC started retaliating against Salard until Rea, with the help of the board, wrongfully denied him privileges.”
According to Holen, WMC denied any improper motive in earlier court filings, but she said the timing of Salard’s denial was suspect from the beginning.
“The majority of the complaints were raised and/or memorialized by the hospital within two days of Salard’s public criticism of hospital management and the Board, and his privileges were suspended only three days after the public report,” the filing states.
In her brief, Holen stated her opinion that “retaliation” against Salard began in early 2011. “The retaliation against Dr. Greg Salard by WMC management began on March 16, 2011, when he resigned his position as WMC Trauma Medical Director, expressing to the Board his concerns about and criticisms of the administration’s apparent disregard for protecting and improving patient care.”
Holen also argued that the former board disregarded the suggestions of experts who had recommended Salard for full privileging.
“Essentially, WMC argues that it has the right to deny privileges for virtually any reason it chooses,” the filing states. “WMC claims it denied Salard privileges because he was not ‘respectful’ or ‘best suited to the needs of the hospital and community.’ Aside from the retaliation issue, a public hospital cannot make privileging decisions, as this lay Board did, with no regard to fairness, due process, a physician’s skills, or patient safety, while ignoring the evidence and recommendations of medical experts.”
Allegations of multiple patient complaints against Salard – especially those surrounding whether, while seeing pregnant patients in his Tideline Clinic office, he asked them if they would be interested in giving their children up for adoption to him – were also dealt with in her brief.
“Significantly, WMC ignores the fact that its own medical staff investigated the two patient complaints at issue here and found no evidence they had been asked to ‘surrender’ their babies,” the brief states.
Based upon those complaints, however, Salard was restricted from seeing pregnant patients without another medical professional present for a short period of time. That restriction was later removed.
“On the medical staff’s recommendation, Salard’s privileges were restored, and staff issued Salard a letter of admonition clarifying its expectations of his future interactions with pregnant patients,” the brief states.
Because of the board’s current and on-going review of Salard’s privileging, a Motion for Extension of Time to File Reply Brief filed by Holen was deemed moot last week by the court.
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