Why did you really fire Dr. Migden?

To the Editor:

Continued lies from St. Peter’s Health Care Partners, especially after reading your editorial this past Friday, causes me to write you this letter.  You were told by Trinity Health’s corporate headquarters, “We put patients first.” This certainly is not what St. Peter’s Health Partners has done, since July 5 with the firing of Dr. Hedy Migden, the closing of her practice, and the abandonment of her patients….

As of July 31, I still have not received a response from Paul Barbarotto, D. O., SPHPMA Chairman of the Board, to the letter I wrote him. I feel all of Dr. Migden’s patients should be asking this new question: Why did you really fire Dr. Migden, along with closing the office of Altamont Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and abandoning the thousands of patients that she treated? This is truly a case of abandonment by an institution that is more concerned with its bottom line, than patient care….

We the patients of Dr. Migden, when reading information from your editorial dated Thursday, July 28, 2016, in regards to the downgraded bonds for Trinity Health, which is St. Peter’s operating management, are justifiably skeptical of their reasons.  We start to see through the excuses of St. Peter’s firing of Dr. Migden.

By firing Dr. Migden, and pushing other physicians out of their practices into retirement or causing them to leave for other opportunities, we see that all St. Peter’s Health Care Partners is worried about is the bottom line. They don’t care about us, the patients, or Dr. Migden as an individual or an outstanding physician who has successfully cared for her patients since 1992.

By firing Dr. Migden, closing Altamont Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, and abandoning the thousands of her patients, they eliminated the need to meet daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly expenses — in turn, eliminating payroll, office supplies, and medical equipment expenditures.

In regards to my opinion on the lease for the office space owned by the Anderson Group, I know for a fact the condition of this office is something that they would not be proud of. This is not how the Anderson Group operates as evident by the way Dr. Migden’s office appeared and was cared for before St. Peter’s Health Care Partners entered into this practice.

Lastly, by firing Dr. Migden with fabricated reasons, even after the acting chief executive officer hand delivered a commendation in June to Dr. Migden, for 15 years of outstanding service, they felt they could just walk away from their legally contracted obligations to Dr. Migden and not have to pay her for the seven years remaining on her contract.

This is clearly evident by the interview conducted by Melissa Hale-Spencer of The Altamont Enterprise article dated Thursday July 21, 2016 on page 15 with Lisa Carr, the medical records clerk for seven years at the Altamont Internal Medicine and Pediatrics office. She explained how the office atmosphere changed after St. Peter’s had taken over the practice. From the start, I believe they had no intent to keep this office open, and made no attempt to follow through on any promises or contracts.

I have been a patient of Dr. Migden since 1992 when she started in the former Albany Family Practice of Albany Medical Center in Altamont, which was the building next to the Altamont Rescue Squad. In any office that she operated, since I have been a patient of hers, she took great pride in keeping her facility clean, neat, and presentable.

As of late 2014, Dr. Migden’s office was in need of painting and repair, which you could see every time you were there for an appointment. You could see that St. Peter’s was not maintaining the office space or the exam rooms. Equipment had become scarce at the end of last year.

During my visits this year, the exam rooms were missing even more equipment and some items didn’t even work. On my visit on Friday, June 24, 2016, accompanying our daughter to her first visit with Dr. Migden, I found the TV still not working in the waiting room with a piece of paper covering the TV screen.

The walls of the waiting room were dirty and in desperate need of repair and painting. There was only one office person and she was rude, nasty, and extremely short with us on arrival.  After my daughter’s exam, my daughter and I walked out and she said, “Dad, St. Peter’s is really trying to shut this place down, I can see this on my first visit, and I plan on following her wherever she goes.”

My daughter was not wrong: St. Peter’s did shut her down; they had a plan and they carried it out.

I highly suggest any of Dr. Migden’s patients reading this should be as outraged as I am, and send your letters to the editor for publication.  I know letters have been written in support of Dr. Migden and more need to be written as we continue to try and find a way to right a wrong.

This is my professional evaluation as a nurse educator, and personal opinion of the egregious actions in regards to Dr. Migden and the closing of Altamont Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. I can no longer in good conscious remain silent.

Raymond C. Briggs

AAS, RN CIC, CLI, EMT-P

Nurse Educator, ENA Faculty

TNCC, ENPC

Course Coordinator

Guilderland

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