It may not be the “Rumble in the Jungle,” but “Rally in the Valley” has a nice ring to it. I’m not sure who coined the phrase, but I’d nominate them for the Clio.
On Tuesday, Concerned Citizens of Bath County will stage a historic moment in the little mountain town of Hot Springs, Virginia in America. The object of their distain?
The Board of Directors at the local, small, 25-bed hospital who, along with their CEO, Jason Paret, have singlehandedly caught the attention of the citizens in a way that hasn’t happened since Wade Wingfield was busted launching model rockets off the front porch of Ashwood Methodist Church.
I know. Bobby Burger and I were there with him launching our own small versions of space explorers. Everything was fine until Wade’s rocket went haywire and set fire to one of Mrs. Burger’s king-sized fitted sheets hanging on the line.
The board, in all its idiocy, has walked all over the desires and wishes of the citizenry, and the result is a fire larger than the clothesline caper.
First, they terminated the contract of a long-time and loved physician, Dr. Jim Redington. Then their refusal to deal hombre a hombre with Redington led to the resignation of a few other doctors. In New York and Paris, losing a “few” physicians isn’t any big deal – it happens every day. But when a few physicians from a 25-bed hospital turn in their resignations, you have a medical crisis on your hands.
Then the board decided to ignore the opportunity provided to them by the Concerned Citizens and respond to questions during a town hall meeting. Even though the board didn’t grow a pair, and hid behind their attorneys, somewhere in the background you could hear the board members standing in a dark corner mumbling to themselves, “But we care about the community.”
Recently it came to light that the board appears to have been playing fast and loose with the financials of the hospital. They took money, about $16 million of it, that seems to have been donated to the hospital to pay for equipment and medical necessities and turned it over to the hospital foundation so that paintings can be hung on the walls and historical artifacts preserved for posterity.
I think the legal term for that is misappropriation of funds. But I’m not a legal eagle, we just call it stealing.
And what about the citizens in the midst of this fiasco?
Well, there’s a few that want to get the cards on the table and start calling a spade a spade. There’s too many though that think that Hot Springs is a modern day Mayberry and, in the words of Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along.”
Well, this isn’t Mayberry and people aren’t crapping out Unicorns and farting rainbows.
Friendships have been strained, people have blocked others on Facebook because of childish egos and from a distance it seems like some of the “Concerned Citizens” are more concerned about their place in history and their image than they are about their neighbors, family and friends who need the hospital to stay open.
Fragmentation is never a good thing. If the citizens can’t stick together, then the board wins. The 1% will have pulled the wool over the eyes of the 99% again and will continue to march in Nazi lockstep over the will of the locals.
Some of the citizens want to toss out the entire board on their ears. Other citizens appear to want to pick and choose which board members stay and which ones get their walking papers.
It’s got to be an all or nothing decision. Either the whole board goes, or the whole board stays.
If just two, or three, members of the board are responsible for this unholy mess, then why haven’t the other board members dusted off their integrity and put a stop to the weakness in ethics and morals being displayed by the minority?
The Latin for this odd behavior is, “Qui tacet consentire videtur." In plain old English it means, “He who is silent is taken to agree.”
The board members who have sat silently by and watched this travesty unfold are just as guilty as the few who have perpetuated this tragedy on the town and surrounding region.
Vina Shaver, my first grade teacher in Ashwood Elementary had the right approach. One day she left me and a few other boys in the classroom while she went to the school office. Being boys, as soon as the door shut behind her, we were up, running around, throwing paper airplanes out the window, writing on the blackboard and generally misbehaving. Well, all except for one boy. He sat quietly at the table reading his book, “Fun with Dick and Jane.” When Mrs. Shaver got back to the room and saw what had been created by pint sized tornadoes on two legs everyone knew they were doomed. Well, except for the one kid still reading “Fun with Dick and Jane.”
Everyone one of us was punished, even the bookworm that hadn’t done anything. No one escaped 30 minutes of detention when the recess bell rang later in the day. Yes, I know, 30 minutes isn’t long. But when you’re a six year old, it’s a lifetime when all you want to do is get outside.
So what’s the lesson in all this? If someone screws up, everyone has to pay.
Possibly it’s only been a minority of the hospital officials who screwed up. The ones who have remained silent are guilty as well and need to pay the consequence.
In the meantime, it’s the citizens of Bath County who are having to pay the price for the board’s misbehavior.
Maybe the Rally in the Valley will open up the eyes of some of the people in the town who just want to whistle while they head down to the fishin' hole.
Jerry Nelson is an internationally known photojournalist who has built a career talking about social justice issues globally. A natie of Hot Springs, Virginia, USA, Nelson is currently based in South America where he is a thorn in the side of several governments. Although busy on assignment, Nelson is always interested in discussing future work opportunities. Contact him today.