What is so wrong with what has been proposed?

This is the question Chancellor Robert Hemenway asks in an op-ed column in today’s Journal-World concerning his and Executive Vice Chancellor Barbara Atkinson’s plan to forge an academic affiliation between the Kansas University Medical Center, KU Hospital and St. Luke’s Hospital.

The answer is relatively simple:

¢ The plan was hatched in secrecy although it involved a major state of Kansas facility that, over the years, has received hundreds of millions of dollars from Kansas taxpayers.

¢ Additionally, the justifications and actions by supporters of the plan, so far, include two major lies, a statutory violation and a cavalier dismissal of concerns and opposition by doctors, medical societies, the hospital board and legislators, among others.

That’s what is so wrong with what has been proposed. Consider:

Those drafting the plan deliberately kept KU Hospital President and CEO Irene Cumming out of the planning and negotiations although the hospital plays a central role in the medical school’s program. Likewise, many KU medical school staff members were kept in the dark. Cumming eventually resigned.

Major Kansas City interests played a big role in designing the planned agreement, and there is justification to question their motives. Hemenway, Atkinson and Kansas City leaders, such as Irv Hockaday and Bill Hall, had hoped to have the agreement signed and delivered before state legislators convened this past January in Topeka.

They were unable to get the plan agreed upon by that date so they decided to exchange the agreements between Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt at an early February meeting in Kansas City. Again, because of increasing questions and suspicions, there was no agreement for the KU Medical Center giveaway to St. Luke’s.

The next deadline was March 31. The St. Luke’s people said if it were not met, they would drop any plans for a KU connection and develop similar relations with medical centers and cancer centers in St. Louis, Boston or Houston. Again, no agreement, and there is no reason to believe medical leaders in St. Louis, Boston or Houston are interested in any plan resembling what St. Luke’s was trying to force with KU.

One of the most glaring “wrongs” – the first lie – is that KU leaders and the St. Luke’s crowd said time and time again it was essential for KU to accept the plan to provide residents to St. Luke’s if KU was to have any chance to be certified as a comprehensive cancer center or a National Cancer Institute.

That is not true. KU medical school needs more clinical cancer reports, but these can be obtained from many other hospitals in the greater Kansas City area. In fact, St. Luke’s cancer program is small, getting smaller, and within a short time, two of St. Luke’s most prestigious doctors dealing in cancer and bone marrow transplants will be joining the KU Medical Center.

The public has been misled by Hemenway, Atkinson, Hall and Hockaday, who claimed the much-heralded “Time To Get It Right” report called for an academic affiliation among St. Luke’s, KU Medical Center and KU Hospital. That’s the second lie. There is no such suggestion or demand in the report, which called for a collaboration in research. Nothing was said about KU being required to provide medical residents for St. Luke’s.

Gov. Sebelius has favored the plan and, in an effort to make sure she had the support of KU Hospital board members, has violated a state statute in how she has tried to place three individuals on the board. These three are KU Provost Richard Lariviere, Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson and Johnson County banker Bob Regnier. The statute says no nominee can participate in any hospital activity before being confirmed by the Kansas Senate. There has been no confirmation, and yet Lariviere, and perhaps Parkinson and Regnier, have participated in hospital board actions.

The hospital board, however, has demonstrated it will not be forced into accepting whatever Hemenway, Atkinson and Lariviere may wish. The board defeated by a resounding 15-3 vote their proposal related to Cumming’s severance.

There are growing numbers of KU Medical Center staff members, as well as KU Hospital staff, who would like a no-confidence vote on Atkinson, and Kansas legislators have approved a proviso saying any affiliation agreement must be approved by a majority of hospital board members and a majority of the Kansas Board of Regents.

Additionally, the Sedgwick County Medical Society has raised questions and urged KU officials to go slowly in agreeing to any plan that could weaken the school and hospital, as well as the university’s medical program in Wichita. The Kansas Medical Society, representing approximately 4,200 Kansas doctors, also has expressed serious questions about the plan.

What does KU get out of the deal? Nothing. Why are Hemenway and Atkinson so obsessed about sealing the deal when there is so little, if anything, for the betterment of KU?

There now are plans for a legislative post audit of the medical center’s fiscal strength and the accuracy of its financial reports.

Ironically, the KU medical school has dropped in its national rankings from where it was not too many years ago while there was tremendous strengthening and positive turnaround at the KU Hospital.

Again, the chancellor asks what is wrong with the proposal. It’s fairly obvious. It is hoped Kansas legislators will not be duped or pressured into approving anything that weakens the KU medical school or KU Hospital.