Dogwood Executive Departs; CEO Search Continues

January 4, 2022Read more

William Buster // Dogwood Health Trust

William Buster, senior vice president at the Dogwood Health Trust in Asheville, has been named chief executive officer of the $1.3 billion New Hanover Community Endowment Inc. in Wilmington, NC.

Just as the Dogwood Health Trust arose from the $1.5 billion sale of Asheville’s nonprofit Mission Health System to HCA Healthcare,

William Buster // Dogwood Health Trust

William Buster, senior vice president at the Dogwood Health Trust in Asheville, has been named chief executive officer of the $1.3 billion New Hanover Community Endowment Inc. in Wilmington, NC.

Just as the Dogwood Health Trust arose from the $1.5 billion sale of Asheville’s nonprofit Mission Health System to HCA Healthcare, the New Hanover Community Endowment was formed from the sale of the previously county-owned New Hanover Regional Medical Center to Novant Health. Dogwood Health and the New Hanover Community Endowment each instantly became two of the largest healthcare endowments, per capita, in the United States.

Buster joined the Dogwood Trust’s Impact Team, responsible for grant-making and program-related investment activity, in November 2020. His departure after 14 months comes as Dogwood continues its search for a permanent CEO. Susan Mims, a physician and former member of the senior leadership team at Mission Hospital, has held the title of Interim CEO since the abrupt and as-yet unexplained departure of Antony Chiang as CEO after less than a year at Dogwood.

Dogwood announced its search for a new permanent CEO in October, with plans to announce the new leader “in early 2022.” Buster will assume his new job at the New Hanover Endowment in March. — Peter Lewis

Mission Hospital Gets an “A” In Latest Safety Grading

November 10, 2021Read more

Mission Hospital in Asheville received an “A” grade in the latest national rating of hospitals for its performance in preventing medical errors and harms to patients, in what its chief medical officer called “a tribute and credit to all the people on this team who have been working so hard through all the challenges we’ve faced during the pandemic.”

And for the eighth straight time, AdventHealth Hendersonville also received an “A” grade from the Leapfrog Group, an independent, nonprofit organization that measures patient safety and assigns a letter grade to hospitals based on how well they prevent medical errors, accidents, injuries, and infections that kill or harm patients.

But Pardee Memorial Hospital in Hendersonville slipped to a “B” rating in the Leapfrog Fall 2021 ratings, which were announced today. Pardee had scored “A” the previous three gradings.

Also receiving “B” grades in the Fall 2021 period, released Nov. 10, were Haywood Regional Medical Center in Clyde, Mission Hospital McDowell in Marion, Rutherford Regional Medical Center in Rutherfordton, and Harris Regional Hospital in Sylva.

Nationwide, 32 percent of all hospitals reviewed by Leapfrog received “A” grades, and 26 percent got “B” grades. And among all states, North Carolina ranked No. 2 nationally for the highest percentage of “A” hospitals.

Mission Health, owned by HCA Healthcare of Nashville, is by far the biggest hospital in Western North Carolina and the region’s only Level II trauma center. It was downgraded to a “B” in the Spring 2021 Leapfrog safety ratings before rebounding in the current period. Grades are updated twice yearly.

“Compassionate care and safety are our highest priorities at Mission Hospital and I am incredibly proud of our team and their commitment to the patients we are privileged to care for,” Chad Patrick, CEO, Mission Hospital, said in a prepared statement. “The entire team’s dedication to the highest level of care for our patients — especially during the challenges of a pandemic — is proven with this safety grade A from Leapfrog.”

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades surveyed 2,901 hospitals nationwide and assigned them point scores on more than 30 categories, including infections, surgical problems, safety problems, practices to prevent errors, and medical staff.

Jay Kirby, chief executive of Pardee, asked to comment on his hospital’s downgrade, told The Watchdog: “Our focus is, and always will be, to provide exceptional care to our patients. A rating score from Leapfrog in no way diminishes our commitment to safety across our organization. Nor does it take away from the very hard work and determination exhibited by our team throughout this past year and the six-month review period for this particular rating. “

“I am very proud of the work we’ve accomplished, the lives we have saved, and the deaths prevented as a result of our efforts,” Kirby said.

Dr. William Hathaway, Mission’s chief medical officer, told Asheville Watchdog that the hospital’s success in the latest scoring came in part from improved information management. In particular, he cited Patient Safety Indicator 90, a composite measure that tracks patient safety (or “avoidance of harm”) during the delivery of health care.

Mission Hospital received an “above average” positive score for having “enough qualified nurses” to care for patients. The hospital has been criticized repeatedly by National Nurses United, the labor union representing registered nurses at Mission, for what the union calls unsafe levels of staffing.

Mission was scored “below average” for “communication with doctors,” “communication with nurses,” and “responsiveness of hospital staff.” — Peter Lewis

Stein joins effort to halt hospital merger … in New Jersey

November 9, 2021Read more

NC Attorney General Josh Stein

Nov. 9 — North Carolina Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, who approved the 2019 sale of nonprofit Mission Health System to for-profit HCA Healthcare, giving HCA a virtual monopoly on healthcare in Western North Carolina, today signed a legal brief in support of a district court’s ruling that halted the merger of two hospital systems in New Jersey.

Stein joined 24 other state attorneys general in filing the amicus brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, arguing that hospitals facing less competition have the ability to charge higher prices without providing improvements to the efficiency or quality of care.

Asked by Asheville Watchdog to comment on why he entered the out-of-state legal fray over the proposed merger of Hackensack Meridian Health and Englewood Healthcare Foundation, his office responded:

“North Carolina, like other states across the country, has seen a wave of hospital consolidations over the past few years. While our office has a limited role in reviewing transactions related to consolidation, we are concerned about what they mean for North Carolinians’ health care.”

“Filing this brief is part of our continued efforts to do everything in our power to make sure that North Carolinians have access to affordable, quality health care, especially in rural and underserved areas in our state,” Stein’s statement to The Watchdog read.

But in the brief, Stein joined the other attorneys general in writing: “Mergers that substantially increase provider market share in local markets lead to increased healthcare costs in local communities and raise the overall cost of healthcare within the States . . . without any substantial improvements in quality for consumers.”

The $1.5 billion purchase of the six-hospital Mission Health System gave HCA a monopoly on healthcare in Western North Carolina. HCA raised prices by 10 percent six months after the sale, and in 2020 Mission Hospital ranked second among HCA’s 183 hospitals for the highest net patient revenues. The hospital’s safety ratings declined in the most recent ratings period.

Stein’s office has received hundreds of complaints from citizens and health care providers about rising costs and declining quality of care at Mission Hospital since he approved the sale to HCA. Stein has said he is “very concerned” about the reports.

In an interview with Asheville Watchdog in late August, Stein said that state law limited his ability to halt the sale of the Mission system to HCA despite “conflicts” uncovered by his investigation of the proposed transaction. Stein has not responded to The Watchdog’s questions about the nature of the conflicts his investigators reported finding.

Because of the law’s restrictions, Stein said in August, he would have no choice but to make the same ruling today as he did in 2019, when the 20 members of Mission Health’s volunteer board of trustees voted unanimously to sell to HCA, despite considering only one other bid. — Peter Lewis

[This post was updated to include a response from the attorney general’s office.]

Dogwood Trust Is Searching For New Chief Executive

October 4, 2021Read more

Susan Mims, MD

[UPDATED Oct. 29] Dogwood Health Trust is looking for a “seasoned, collaborative and humble executive” to be chief executive officer of the $2 billion private nonprofit healthcare foundation, Dogwood announced Oct. 4. The Asheville-based trust is currently led by Interim CEO Susan Mims.

Dogwood announced plans to interview finalists for the position in December and to select a permanent replacement by early next year.

Susan Mims, MD

Dogwood announced plans to interview finalists for the position in December and to select a permanent replacement by early next year. Asked if Sims was a candidate for the permanent CEO position, a Dogwood spokeswoman said, “Out of respect for the confidentiality of all candidates, Dogwood Health Trust will not make that information public.”

Mims, a physician and public health expert, is a former member of Mission Hospital’s leadership team. She was appointed Dogwood’s interim CEO in October 2020 to replace Antony Chiang, who abruptly left the trust in September 2020, less than a year after he was hired with great fanfare and minutes before he was scheduled to speak at a news conference in Asheville.

In the year since Chiang’s departure, no one on Dogwood’s leadership team has responded to Asheville Watchdog’s repeated questions about Chiang’s sudden departure, and Chiang has not responded to requests for comment.

The Dogwood board selected Chiang from among 125 candidates to become Dogwood’s first chief executive. Witt Kieffer, the Massachusetts-based executive search firm that handled Chiang’s hiring, will once again conduct the search for the next CEO.

The Dogwood Trust was created with proceeds from the sale of the Mission Health System to HCA Healthcare in 2019. The Trust’s mission is to “dramatically improve the health and well-being of all people and communities across 18 counties and the Qualla Boundary in Western North Carolina.”

In general, a private foundation must distribute 5 percent of its net assets each year to maintain tax-exempt status. Claiming $2 billion in assets this year suggests that Dogwood intends to distribute at least $100 million a year to support housing, education, economic opportunity, and health and wellness in the region. — Peter Lewis

[This news item was updated and corrected Oct. 29 to remove an erroneous assertion that Susan Mims planned to step down when a permanent replacement is chosen. The Watchdog regrets the error.]

Developers Withdraw Charlotte Street Request

September 17, 2021Read more

After nearly a year of intense opposition from community activists, the developers of the proposed 101 Charlotte Street development formally withdrew their application to the City of Asheville for special permission to exceed current zoning restrictions along the near-northside Asheville corridor.

The out-of-state developer, RCG of Massachusetts, and its local landowner partner,

The out-of-state developer, RCG of Massachusetts, and its local landowner partner, Killian Chestnut Residential Properties, planned to tear down and replace a dozen century-old homes with a new apartment complex, parking garage, retail space, office space, condominiums and rowhouses on the nearly seven-acre 100-block of Charlotte Street.

On Friday, the development team withdrew its request for a variance from the city that would have allowed buildings along Charlotte Street to be five stories tall, significantly taller than current zoning regulations allow. The withdrawal means that, at least for now, development will proceed under current zoning guidelines intended to prevent over-development.

Opponents, including the Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County (PSABC) and the Charlotte Street Neighborhood Association, cheered the news, but said their fight to save the existing homes was not over.

“While we are very pleased that the developers are no longer moving forward with the project, the future of this block remains uncertain and there are a number of complicated zoning issues at play,” the PSABC wrote on Facebook. “We will continue to monitor the situation and to encourage the developers to work with us and the community towards a project we can all support.” — Peter Lewis

Not-so-happy Labor Day: Study ranks North Carolina “worst” for working women

September 6, 2021Read more

For the second straight year, North Carolina ranks last overall in the United States for meeting the needs of working families, and especially in meeting the needs of working women, according to an annual study by Oxfam, the international anti-poverty organization.

The study, called the “Best and Worst States to Work in America 2021,” found that North Carolina “provides no support for workers’ rights to organize,

The study, called the “Best and Worst States to Work in America 2021,” found that North Carolina “provides no support for workers’ rights to organize, does not exceed the federal minimum wage, and has very few worker protection policies.” In ranking North Carolina at the bottom for working women, Oxfam cited the lack of a mandate for paid leave, no accommodation for pregnancy, and no protection against sexual harassment.

Oregon topped the list of “best places to work,” which surveyed working conditions in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Unlike many other states, North Carolina has not raised its minimum wage beyond the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, a level not changed since 2009, or the federal minimum tipped wage of $2.13 an hour, which has not increased in 30 years. In theory, employers of tipped wage earners are legally obligated to ensure that tipped employees earn at least the state minimum wage if tips fall short. However, the Oxfam report said, enforcement of this mandate is “paltry at best.”

Notably, women make up 69 percent of the tipped minimum wage workforce, and 36 percent of them are mothers, half of whom are single mothers, according to the report.

Asheville-based nonprofit Just Economics, which studies wage and cost of living issues in western North Carolina, put the 2021 “living wage” for the Asheville metro area at $17.30 an hour. The figure is calculated using the Universal Living Wage Formula, which is based on a 40-hour work week, the Fair Market Rent for Asheville determined by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, and another HUD guideline that no more than 30 percent of a person’s gross monthly income should be spent on housing.

HUD determined that the Fair Market Rent for a safe apartment in Asheville is $1,255 including utilities for a two-bedroom apartment. The statewide average for North Carolina is $919.

The 2019 Bowen Report on housing needs for the City of Asheville found that 46.8% of renters were cost burdened, meaning they spent more than 30 percent of their income on housing, and 19.4 percent were severely cost burdened, paying more than 50 percent of their income on housing. And that report was completed before the latest surge in Asheville housing prices.

In a meeting Sept. 2, the city’s Affordable Housing Advisory Committee noted that no houses were for sale in Asheville for less than $275,000. In August 2021, the real estate company Redfin reported, Asheville home prices were up 22.1 percent compared to last year, selling for a median price of $428,000. — Barbara Durr

Cawthorn targeted by panel investigating Jan. 6 attack

September 5, 2021Read more

[Sept. 5] Western North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn is among the Republican members of Congress whose records are being targeted by the special committee investigating the fatal Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, The New York Times is reporting.

The committee has asked technology firms to preserve the phone and social media records of 11 far-right members of Congress,

The committee has asked technology firms to preserve the phone and social media records of 11 far-right members of Congress, including Cawthorn, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and Jim Jordan of Ohio, the newspaper reported.

“These are the individuals who have been publicly supportive of Jan. 6 and the people who participated in the insurrection on Jan. 6,” Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the panel’s chairman, told The Times.

“We need to find out exactly what their level of participation in this event was,” he said. “If you helped raise money, if you provided misinformation to people, if you served on a planning committee — whatever your role in Jan. 6, I think the public has a right to know.”

Cawthorn rallied the crowd at a pro-Trump protest just before the attack on the Capitol. During the attack, while hiding in the basement, he called a right-wing radio show to say the rioters were “paid by the Democratic machine” and that he had carried loaded weapons into the Capitol.

At a recent GOP meeting in Macon County, Cawthorn said people arrested for their roles in the attack are “political prisoners” and warned of “bloodshed” over a “rigged” American election system. Among a number of provocative and misleading statements at the Macon rally, Cawthorn said in response to a question that “we are actively working on” plans for another similar protest in Washington. — Sally Kestin

Mission Nurses’ Union Calls for Public Protest, Citing Patient Safety

September 1, 2021Read more

[Sept. 1] The labor union representing registered nurses at Mission Hospital said nurses will stage a protest Thursday morning to call attention what it called “patient safety and unsafe working conditions” at Asheville’s flagship hospital system.

Among other complaints, the National Nurses Organizing Committee of National Nurses United asserted that HCA Healthcare-owned Mission Hospital scheduled symptomatic,

Among other complaints, the National Nurses Organizing Committee of National Nurses United asserted that HCA Healthcare-owned Mission Hospital scheduled symptomatic, COVID-positive nurses to work at the hospital, and failed to provide nurses with adequate masks, gowns, gloves and other personal protective equipment.

In a statement, Hannah Drummond, a registered nurse in Mission’s emergency department, said hospital administrators have ignored “months” of staff complaints about safety standards, including staffing. “We have a duty to the Asheville community to provide optimal care, and we will continue our advocacy until Mission is a safe place for our patients,” she said.

“We’re disappointed that the labor union would attempt to pull people away from patient care for a rally during COVID and not follow the mutually agreed upon process that they requested as recently as July,” JC Sadler, Vice President for Communications and Community Strategy at the North Carolina Division of HCA Healthcare, said when asked by Asheville Watchdog for a response to the union’s statement. “Caring for our patients and employees safely is our priority. We have ample PPE for our colleagues, require universal masking, and follow CDC protocols for returning employees to work.”

The protest is scheduled for 8 a.m. Sept. 2 at the corner of Biltmore Avenue and Hospital Drive. — P.L.

Pardee Hospital Requires All Staff to be Vaccinated

August 23, 2021Read more

Pardee UNC Health Care in Hendersonville on Monday became the first hospital in western North Carolina to make COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory for all staff, according to a memo sent Aug. 23 to employees by the hospital’s president. The announcement came within hours of formal approval of the Pfizer vaccine by the federal Food and Drug Administration.

Despite a local surge in COVID cases related to the highly contagious delta variant of the virus, vaccinations remained voluntary on Monday for healthcare workers at Mission Hospital in Asheville and AdventHealth Hendersonville. The vast majority of COVID infections, hospitalizations, and deaths nationwide are among unvaccinated people.

James M. Kirby II, president and CEO of Pardee, set a Nov. 12 deadline for all workers to be vaccinated, but his memo did not specify the consequences for noncompliance. “As with the flu vaccine, we will review requests for a medical or religious exemption to this requirement,” he wrote. “Full policy details will be shared by the end of this week.”

Hospitals nationwide are struggling with staffing shortages, especially among nurses and nursing assistants, and hospital administrators elsewhere have said they fear staff will quit if required to get vaccinated.

“We hope that the FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine encourages those who were previously hesitant to decide to get the vaccine,” said Nancy Lindell, director of public and media relations at HCA Healthcare North Carolina Division-Mission Health. “Our infectious disease experts as well as those at the CDC are strongly encouraging vaccination as a critical step to protect individuals from the virus, but at this time our colleagues are not required to be vaccinated for COVID-19.”

“AdventHealth has not mandated vaccines for our team members,” Victoria Dunkle, director of communications and public relations at AdventHealth Hendersonville, told The Watchdog on Monday. “Based on scientific evidence, COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective at reducing the risk of severe illness, hospitalization and death from COVID-19,” she said. — P.L.

Local Residents Sue HCA, Alleging Overcharging at Mission Hospital

August 10, 2021Read more

Since being acquired by the giant for-profit hospital chain HCA Healthcare, Mission Health and its Mission Hospital flagship have become the most expensive hospital system in North Carolina for many procedures, with prices often double the state average, according to a class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday against HCA Healthcare and its Mission Health subsidiary in Asheville.

The 87-page lawsuit, filed in Superior Court in Buncombe County by a group of local residents, alleges that Nashville-based HCA illegally used its effective monopoly market power in the region to raise prices while reducing the quality of care at the six hospitals and multiple clinics it operates in Western North Carolina, harming doctors and consumers.

“Once we have been served with the lawsuit, we will respond appropriately through the legal process,” Nancy Lindell, division director for public and media relations for HCA Healthcare North Carolina Division and Mission Health, said in a statement. “Mission Health is committed to the health and well-being of every person who comes to us for care, and we are proud of our dedicated hospital teams that are facing the many challenges of this pandemic and the exceptional care they have provided to our patients.”

Many of the allegations against HCA and Mission Health were first reported by Asheville Watchdog.

The plaintiffs in the class-action suit include Katherine Button, Faith Cook, and Will Overfelt of Asheville, Richard Nash of Candler, William Davis of Clyde, and Jonathan Powell of Morganton. The complaint was prepared by the law firms Wallace & Graham of Salisbury, N.C., and Fairmark Partners of Washington, D.C. — P.L.

Update: Covid cases spike among younger, unvaccinated

July 21, 2021Read more

The Delta variant of the SARS-COVID-19 virus is spreading “exponentially,” doubling since last week, and about 92 percent of all new cases in Buncombe County are among individuals who are not fully vaccinated, Buncombe County Public Health Director Stacie Saunders said Wednesday. The average age of newly infected individuals is 39, Saunders said.

Even so,

Even so, Gov. Roy Cooper said his executive order mandating facial masks at schools, camps, and child care facilities will expire next week and will not be renewed. However, Mandy Cohen, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, said Wednesday she and Cooper “strongly recommend” masks for all students, teachers, and staff inside elementary and middle school facilities even if adults or students 12 and older have been fully vaccinated.

Three-fourths of North Carolina’s children 12 and older have not been vaccinated, according to Cohen and Cooper, leaving most schools vulnerable to the Delta variant of COVID-19. — P.L.

COVID-19 cases rise sharply a month before schools open

July 20, 2021Read more

New COVID-19 cases are rising sharply in Buncombe County in the past two weeks, but public schools in Asheville and Buncombe County will resume in-person classes a month from now without requiring students, faculty or staff to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Most of the average 18 new cases a day — triple the number of early July but far fewer than at the height of the pandemic in January —are among people who have not been vaccinated for the coronavirus,

All children age 12 and older are eligible for free COVID-19 vaccinations — adults too — and Asheville and Buncombe County schools hosted free immunization clinics this summer. But COVID-19 vaccinations are voluntary, and any decision to make them mandatory for students, faculty, and staff ahead of the scheduled Aug. 23 opening would have to come from the state health department and the Department of Public Instruction, school officials said.

Health officials say current vaccines are effective against the Delta variant, but only 51 percent of Buncombe County adults are fully vaccinated, according to figures updated Tuesday by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

As of Tuesday, “Asheville City Schools is NOT requiring our students or staff to receive a COVID-19 vaccine prior to the start of the 2021-2022 school year,” Ashley-Michelle Thublin, the system’s executive director of communications, told Asheville Watchdog via email.

“We will return to school in person, five days a week in August,” Stacia Harris, director of communications for Buncombe County Schools, emailed The Watchdog, adding, “BCS is not requiring COVID-19 vaccines for students or staff to begin school in August.”

All students will still be required to have been vaccinated for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, rubella, mumps, flu, chickenpox, hepatitis B, and meningitis. By state law, school principals are required to deny admittance to any student who has not been vaccinated for these diseases.

One-hundred years ago, before an effective vaccine against diphtheria was developed, the disease killed 1,864 North Carolinians in the period 1920-24. The North Carolina General Assembly made the diphtheria vaccine mandatory for schoolchildren in 1939. The disease is now rare.

North Carolina was the first state to make a polio vaccine mandatory for schoolchildren, in 1959. A decade earlier, in 1948, polio killed 143 children and adults in the state and crippled thousands more. Today the disease is virtually eliminated. — P.L.

Cawthorn opposes removing statues of white supremacists

June 30, 2021Read more

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC11) voted by proxy Tuesday against a House bill to remove statues of white supremacists and pro-slavery Confederate sympathizers from the halls of Congress. The resolution passed with bipartisan support, 285 to 120, with three North Carolina Republicans joining the Democrats in voting to replace the statues.

The bill now goes to the Senate.

The bill now goes to the Senate. A similar resolution passed the House last year, 305-113, but then-majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) did not allow it to come up for a Senate vote.

The bill opposed by Cawthorn calls for the removal of “all Confederate statues and Confederate busts from any area of the United States Capitol which is accessible to the public.” It also specifically calls for removing a statue honoring former North Carolina Gov. Charles Brantley Aycock, who was a key figure in fomenting the Wilmington massacre of 1898, in which a mob of some 2,000 whites attacked and killed at least 60 and possibly more than 300 Black residents.

Charles B. Aycock

As governor, Aycock wrote that North Carolina had “solved the negro problem” by “as far as possible under the Fifteenth Amendment to disfranchise him.” “He is unfit to vote,” Aycock wrote.

In 2018 the state of North Carolina voted to replace the Aycock statue — on display in the Crypt of the U.S. Capitol — with one of the Rev. Billy Graham, the Christian evangelist from Montreat, who died earlier that year, but the replacement has not yet happened. Each state has two statues in the Capitol’s National Statuary collection; North Carolina’s other statue is of Zebulon B. Vance, a Confederate officer, two-time governor, U.S. senator, slaveholder, and avowed white supremacist whose monument in downtown Asheville was demolished this year.

The bill Cawthorn opposed also specifically calls for replacing a bust honoring former Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, a white supremacist who delivered the majority opinion in the Dred Scott decision of 1857, with one of Thurgood Marshall, the court’s first African-American justice and a champion of the civil rights movement.

In Scott, Taney wrote that Blacks were “beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race.” His landmark decision argued that “any person descended from Africans,” whether enslaved or free, would never be eligible for citizenship in the United States and that the federal government had no right to forbid or abolish slavery in expansion states.

Asheville Watchdog requested comment from Cawthorn’s office about his opposition to removing the statues and busts, but has not yet received a response. Cawthorn was traveling to Texas for a media event at the Mexican border with former President Donald Trump.

But in an interview with The Washington Examiner a year ago, then-candidate Cawthorn spoke in favor of removing public monuments to Confederate leaders. “Gen. Lee was a great man, an incredible man,” Cawthorn told the newspaper, “but I think he was on the wrong side of history, and I don’t think we should romanticize the side of history he was on.” — P.L.

[Editor’s note: This story was updated to note that because he was traveling, Rep. Cawthorn instructed his “nay” vote to be cast by his proxy, Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX).]

City must pay legal fees to local media, judge rules

June 24, 2021Read more

The city of Asheville must pay nearly $4,200 in legal fees to a coalition of local media organizations that sued the city for trying to bar news reporters from a public meeting in March. The coalition, including Asheville Watchdog, The Asheville Citizen Times, Mountain Xpress, Blue Ridge Public Radio, and Carolina Public Press, successfully sued the city, citing North Carolina’s open meetings law, and on Tuesday Buncombe County Superior Court Judge Steven Warren ruled that the city must pay the coalition’s legal fees.

“We are grateful that Judge Warren apparently agreed that it was important not only for the city of Asheville to comply with the open meetings law but to be accountable when they tried to sidestep it,” said Amanda Warren, the lawyer who represented the local media coalition. “A different ruling could have encouraged public bodies and public agencies to flout the law with little consequence.”

Brad R. Branham, Asheville’s city attorney, told Mountain Xpress that he disagreed with Judge Warren’s rulings and that “it is difficult to say that this particular ruling would have any bearing on Council meetings moving forward.” He declined to say how much the city spent on its legal defense.

Urban Renewal Impact website to be launched June 24

June 22, 2021Read more

A new website that allows residents to tell their stories about the impact of the urban renewal program that uprooted the Black community from its traditional neighborhoods in Asheville will be launched Thursday, part of the first phase of city’s plan to implement its July 2020 resolution to provide reparations to the Black community.

The website, “Urban Renewal Impact,” was created by Priscilla Ndiaye Robinson, a former Southside resident and researcher on urban renewal. Robinson said her work, which was supported by funding in 2021 from the Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County, is expected to be “an important resource in the truth-and-reconciliation conversations on reparations in Asheville.”

A multiyear digital collaboration with local citizens and experts, the website focuses on urban renewal programs in the 1950s to 1980s that displaced Black communities from such areas as Valley Street (now South Charlotte St.) and Southside (also called East Riverside in the urban renewal program). (See Asheville Watchdog’s stories on reparations here and Black home ownership here.)

Robinson unveils the website on in the evening of June 24th. It can be accessed through this link: http://urbanrenewalimpact.org/ after the 7 p.m. launch. — B.D.

Nurses to picket Mission Hospital, citing concerns about safety

June 14, 2021Read more

The labor union representing Mission Hospital nurses said members will picket two hospital facilities in Asheville June 15 to highlight concerns about under-staffing that, they contend, has affected the safety of patient care. The labor action is the latest in a growing fusillade of complaints about the safety and quality of patient care made to regulators and to Asheville Watchdog since for-profit HCA Healthcare took over nonprofit Mission Health in 2019.

In announcing the picket, National Nurses Organizing Committee North Carolina said Mission and St. Joseph hospitals — both owned and operated by HCA — need to make improvements to retain experienced registered nurses (RNs) and recruit new ones. Working conditions at Mission make it hard to attract new recruits, the union committee said.

Asked to comment on the union’s statement, Nancy Lindell, Director of Public and Media Relations for HCA Healthcare North Carolina Division and Mission Health, said in an emailed statement: “Since mid-February Mission Hospital has held roughly a dozen bargaining sessions with the union representatives and, in those sessions, the parties have reached more than 30 tentative agreements” on topics including health and safety.

“Despite this progress, we understand that this kind of picketing activity sometimes occurs when a union and an employer are engaged in negotiations for a contract, as we are with this union,” Lindell wrote. “This is merely a form of demonstration that the union is legally allowed to do. We want the public to be assured that Mission Hospital remains open and continues to provide the quality patient care that Mission Hospital has always provided.”

In calling for picketing, Mission nurses said hospital management has consistently failed to adhere to its own staffing standards, including nurse to patient ratios.

“Since HCA purchased our hospital in 2019, the management has cut corners on safe patient care by cutting support staff and violating their own nurse staffing grids,” said Shelby Runkles, a cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit RN at Mission. “With each additional patient, nurses are more prone to make mistakes and the risk of serious complications increases.”

Registered nurses at HCA Mission voted overwhelmingly last September to join National Nurses Organizing Committee-North Carolina, an affiliate of National Nurses United (NNU), and are negotiating with HCA Mission on a first collective bargaining agreement. The pickets are scheduled to be at Mission Hospital at 509 Biltmore Avenue and Mission’s St. Joseph Campus at 428 Biltmore Avenue from 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. — Barbara Durr

Stein hints at second thoughts about Mission sale to HCA

June 8, 2021Read more

Although he approved HCA’s purchase of Mission Health in 2018, Attorney General Josh Stein now appears to be having second thoughts about that sale. In a June 2 statement regarding a different hospital merger, he said he had “real concerns” about hospital consolidations, and specifically named HCA and Mission. “Bigger doesn’t always mean better.

Stein approved the deal that ended more than 130 years of Mission’s legacy of putting quality of care over profits. But now, he said, his office has had more than 100 complaints from patients about quality of care and billing. “Consolidations drive up already inordinate health care costs,” Stein said. He urged hospital administrators, including those at HCA, to be transparent on their pricing.

HCA raised prices 10 percent shortly after taking control of Mission in 2019. As reported in The Wall Street Journal in March, a number of HCA hospitals violated federal price transparency rules that required hospitals to post their prices starting in January 2021. HCA embedded coding in its website to hide prices from consumers trying to understand what their costs might be, The Journal found. After The Journal revealed the blocking links, HCA removed them.

State Treasurer Dale R. Folwell, reacting to the Journal article, criticized Stein in March for not taking action “to protect consumers.”

“I am disappointed by hospitals’ pattern of deceit,” Folwell wrote March 31. “Patients and taxpayers deserve to know what they’re paying for care. We must get rid of secret contracts and push the power down to the consumer. The attorney general needs to be involved.”

It is not the first time Stein has warned HCA about transparency. More than a year ago, the attorney general wrote to Greg Lowe, president of the North Carolina division of HCA Healthcare, to raise concerns including “a surge in complaints about quality of care” and about HCA’s transparency in billing patients.

In his latest letter to hospital administrators, Stein said obfuscation on pricing “layers needless anxiety and uncertainty on top of what are already some of the most stressful circumstances a person can face.” — B.D.

Abolish Department of Education, Cawthorn tells NC GOP leaders

June 6, 2021Read more

Rep. Madison Cawthorn visits Trump Tower in New York City June 2 (PHOTO CREDIT DAILY MAIL)

U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC11), speaking at the North Carolina Republican Party’s Old North State Dinner on June 4 in Greenville, called for abolishing the federal Department of Education, The East Carolinian reported.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn visits Trump Tower in New York City June 2 (PHOTO CREDIT DAILY MAIL)

“We need to abolish the Department of Education because no Washington D.C. bureaucrat, no one who wants to push critical race theory, nobody who believes that they should indoctrinate our children at a young age and force politics upon them should be allowed to be in charge of our schools,” Cawthorn was quoted as saying.

Critical race theory is an academic discipline, primarily taught in law schools, that examines why racial inequality persists in the United States despite Constitutional guarantees and two centuries of laws enacted to codify equality and equal justice. It argues that racism is embedded in the American social system and enabled by the legal system.

“We need to allow the next generation to be raised in a nation where they’re not politicized from the age of five,” Cawthorn said. “When we have drag queens in our public libraries reading to our children, the libraries that we paid for … it is up to us to fight as hard as we possibly can for the next generation.”

Cawthorn, who was home-schooled and left college after one semester, sits on the House Committee of Education and Labor.

Cawthorn also called for abolishing the federal income tax and impeaching judges who “do not believe in our constitution.”

Former President Donald Trump spoke at the North Carolina dinner June 5. Cawthorn made an unannounced visit to New York City on June 2 and was photographed leaving Trump’s New York residence. — P.L.

HCA and Google partner to mine patient data

May 27, 2021Read more

Mission Hospital (Photo credit: Bloomberg)

HCA and Google have agreed to work together to develop healthcare algorithms using patient records, The Wall Street Journal reported May 26. The patient records, including digital health records and data from internet-connected medical devices, would be extracted from HCA’s 186 hospitals and more than 2,000 clinics and facilities across the country,

Mission Hospital (Photo credit: Bloomberg)

The new multi-year agreement expands a previous alliance between the two companies to share patient health data related to COVID-19. Google and HCA engineers will work to develop algorithms to “help improve operating efficiency, monitor patients, and guide doctors’ decisions,” according to the companies.

“Data are spun off of every patient in real time,” said Dr. Jonathan Perlin, chief medical officer of HCA, which is based in Nashville, Tenn. “Part of what we’re building is a central nervous system to help interpret the various signals.”

Some of Google’s earlier forays into the $3 trillion healthcare industry have raised concerns about data privacy. Dr. Perlin told The Journal that HCA patient records would be stripped of identifying information before being shared with Google data scientists and that the hospital system would control access to the data. — P.L.

Blue Ridge Public Radio’s Feingold to Retire in 2021

May 25, 2021Read more

David Feingold (Photo credit: WLOS)

David Feingold, chief executive officer and general manager of Blue Ridge Public Radio, told staff this week that he plans to retire sometime before Thanksgiving, The Watchdog has learned. Feingold, 71, joined WCQS in July 2015 after a career in commercial radio and television broadcasting including six years as London bureau chief for CNN, and, for 16 years, as assistant general manager of NET, Nebraska’s statewide educational radio and television service. In Asheville, Feingold oversaw the creation of BPR News, a sister station to BPR Classic. A search committee has been formed by the BPR Board of Directors to find his replacement. Disclosure: Blue Ridge Public Radio is a publishing partner of Asheville Watchdog. — B.D.

Asheville native Joe West poised to break MLB record

May 25, 2021Read more

Major League Baseball umpire Joe West is scheduled to be behind home plate Tuesday night, working his 5,376th regular-season game. In doing so, “Country Joe” will break baseball’s umpiring record held by Hall of Famer Bill Klem, who died in 1951, the year before West was born in Asheville.

Besides calling balls and strikes,

Besides calling balls and strikes, West is famous for his feuds and confrontations with players and managers. Although his eyesight has been questioned on occasion, he has exquisite hearing, and last year ejected a team’s general manager who was yelling criticisms from a luxury box high above the playing field. In April West won $500,000 in a defamation lawsuit he brought against former major league catcher Paul Lo Duca, who falsely accused West of expanding the strike zone for pitcher Billy Wagner in return for Wagner letting West drive his classic 1957 Chevy.

West, who moved to Greenville, NC, for high school, was a star quarterback at Elon College (now Elon University). He plans to retire at the end of this season. West is a singer-songwriter and has recorded two country music albums, and is an avid golfer. Baseball scribes say he is almost certain to be elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Good luck, Joe! The Watchdog regrets that it cannot print this story in Braille so that you can read it. — P.L.

Update: Cawthorn taunts Liz Cheney after GOP purge

May 12, 2021Read more

Cawthorn, who backed Cheney, now calls for her ouster

May 11, 2021Read more

If there were a political Olympics, Madison Cawthorn would surely be a contender for a gold medal in back-flipping. In advance of this week’s House GOP vote on its leadership team, the 25-year-old congressman from Western North Carolina executed a perfect reverse somersault on Liz Cheney, whom he had supported for the GOP’s leadership just three months ago — only to run into a buzz saw of criticism from his far-right base on his Madison Cawthorn Chat channel on Telegram.

Last week, apparently chastened, Cawthorn posted a broadside attack headlined LIZ CHENEY MUST GO. He implied that his reason for flipping was that Cheney had fist-bumped President Biden when he entered the House chamber for a joint address to Congress last month. Cawthorn also urged readers to donate to his 2022 reelection campaign.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn posted this May 8 on Telegram

Cawthorn has also back-flipped since telling CNN anchor Pamela Brown in January that “the election wasn’t fraudulent” and that “Joseph R. Biden is our President.” He also joined 16 other GOP freshmen in signing a letter to President Biden expressing willingness to work with the Democratic administration in the “hope we can rise above the partisan fray.”

His Telegram followers booed him. Cawthorn has now reverted to calling the election “stolen,” writes that Donald and Melania Trump are still President and First Lady, vows to support “President Trump’s agenda,” and refers to President Biden and Vice President Harris simply as “Joe” and “Kamala.”

As for rising above the partisan fray, Cawthorn has voted against every proposal brought forward by Democrats, including his vote against pandemic relief programs and broadband expansion for Western North Carolina. — Tom Fiedler

Documentary shows how racial covenants segregated Asheville neighborhoods

April 29, 2021Read more

Asheville neighborhoods as we know them didn’t just happen. Racially restrictive covenants that barred the sale of homes to people of color have been among the many racist barriers to Black home ownership here. When Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity discovered such a covenant on a property it intended to develop, it decided to raise the profile of the issue by producing an 18-minute documentary.

“We hope this film expands peoples’ knowledge of how past laws and practices shaped the current housing landscape,” said Ariane Kjellquist, Habitat’s communications director. The film includes interviews with Buncombe County Commissioner Al Whitesides; Drew Reisinger, of the Buncombe County Registry of Deeds; Kel Compton, a Habitat homeowner; Sophie Dixon, of the Shiloh Community Association; Sarah Judson of the University of North Carolina at Asheville; and Parker Smith of Pisgah Legal Services. — B.D.

Free COVID-19 vaccinations, no appointment needed

April 28, 2021Read more

Buncombe County Health and Human Services is now offering free, walk-in COVID-19 vaccinations at the Buncombe County vaccination clinic located on the campus of A-B Tech. The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is available to everyone 16 years of age and older at the A-B Tech location. The clinic is open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 9 a.m.

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Hospitals Curtail Services as COVID Cases Surge to Record Levels

Unvaccinated patients fill beds as hospital workers fall ill

By PETER LEWIS (January 11, 2022)

Hospitals Curtail Services as COVID Cases Surge to Record Levels

Slide presentation by Dr. William Hathaway, chief medical officer of HCA Mission. The latest surge began just after Christmas. // Screengrab, with added arrow, by Asheville Watchdog

Local hospitals, including Mission, are once again reeling under a perfect storm of pandemic pressures: record infection rates, overwhelmingly among people who refuse to be vaccinated; a sudden spike in the number of healthcare workers who are infected, on top of an already critical staffing shortage; and a shortage of COVID-19 test kits.

The latest surge began Dec. 27, following Christmas gatherings, William Hathaway, Mission’s chief medical officer, reported to the hospital’s medical staff on Monday. Children and people under the age of 44 are among the fastest-growing groups of patients, he said, and the rise in infected doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers who care for them was almost literally off the charts.

State and local official reports indicate that there are now more COVID-19 infections in the Asheville metropolitan area than at any time since the pandemic began two years ago.

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COVID Surge: 51 Dead in August. ‘We’re running out of ambulances’

Record Number of Cases Reported at Mission

By SALLY KESTIN, BARBARA DURR, and PETER H. LEWIS (September 9, 2021)

COVID Surge: 51 Dead in August. ‘We’re running out of ambulances’

Death certificate for one of 24 COVID victims who died at Mission in late August

Jessica Vaughn, a 33-year-old mother of five, was found dead in her Asheville apartment. The cause: COVID-19.

Brianna Justus, a 31-year-old expectant mother, went from healthy to COVID intensive care patient at Mission Hospital in less than a week. Her baby, delivered by emergency cesarean section, survived. Brianna Justus did not.

Thomas Turner of West Asheville waited nearly two hours at an urgent care center without being seen before driving himself to Mission, his family said. He never made it inside. Turner, 59, died in the parking lot while his wife, who also had COVID, was being treated in the emergency room.

Their deaths are just a few from a current surge that is overwhelming Buncombe County’s health care system, taxing already exhausted doctors and nurses, and afflicting a large swath of Western North Carolina in numbers not seen since the pre-vaccine pandemic peak.