BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY FEB. 28, 2022) — Welcome to the week, an uncertain one at best given world events.

Buy our book! Then buckle your seat belts as we break some big local news.

THE PLANET begins with this blatant plug in the form of a reminder — Third Person Singular: 33 1/3 Poems Each, THE PLANET‘s new book, is available at Amazon.com. Third Person Singular — our collaboration with Jerri Chaplin (Charleston, SC) and Paul Kocak (Syracuse, NY), two of the country’s best contemporary poets — has had a successful opening and is just now hitting its stride. We invite you to enjoy poetry as a home remedy to those larger global ills that have induced so much suffering and sleepless night in recent days. Poetry can calm, soothe, and even if it provokes, still serves the relaxing function of slowing one down and inviting reflection, kinda like smoking a good cigar or slowly savoring sipping a fine whiskey or brew. Third Person Singular is like getting three books in one, providing a cross-section of today’s literary scene. Three sections of work exhibit the distinct styles: Valenti’s word riddles, Chaplin’s emotional openness, and Kocak’s imagist cameos. $15 bucks, cheap, as Mad Magazine used to say … best deal on THE PLANET. What the world needs now is not more war but more poetry. Every purchase of this book sticks a middle finger in the face of the warmongers.

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And now, in our best Walter Cronkite tones, the news. Give the situation in Ukraine, the story piddles. Put into a local and regional context, however, it’s big, as in Barney Fife BIG.

This weekend, THE PLANET stumbled on a story that will shake, rattle, and roll Pittsfield’s economy (and the county’s). We heard from reliable sources that Baystate Care in Springfield is in negotiations to purchase/subsume Berkshire Health Systems (BHS). Eat it up, gobble it, friendly/hostile takeover, big fish eating little fish. Call it what you will.

First, though, an important point we stress:

THE PLANET has not officially confirmed this news.

That said, we have it from sources with reason to know. Based on what we have learned thus far from our investigation, we believe the story to be accurate and the deal will be consummated, likely by late spring of 2023.

The details of the deal remain unclear. How does one non-profit take over another one? Is there money involved? Something else? We’ve been on the inside of how the corporate world handles it, notably when GE Plastics purchased Borg-Warner Chemical in 1988 for $2.3 billion, cash. If the deal goes through, and we’ve been around long enough to know that Yogi was spot-on when he said “it ain’t over til it’s over,” the question “why” is of more interest than “how.”

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As to “why,” it helps to go into inductive mode and assemble the clues.

• Phelps to Leave — In mid-December, David Phelps announced his retirement after 28 years heading BHS.
  •   “After engaging in thoughtful succession planning with the BHS Board of Trustees (BOT) for the past three years and with the confidence that we now have a full complement of experienced executive leaders in place at BHS, I know that now is the right time for making this transition.” That’s how the press release put it.
    • The question arises if Phelps is retiring because of ill health — in other words, the BOT got sick of him. All BHS says about the date of Phelps’ exit is that it will be “early 2022” and that he will be available during the transition to new management. It appears that “new management” will be coming from Baystate. Phelps said in the release statement it is a “very challenging time in health care.” Read between the lines.
    • BHS has been noticeably reticent to offer other details, including the specifics of Phelps’ retirement, the transition to new management, and finally the makeup of the new interim management team itself. This makes it reasonable to assume they haven’t done it because whatever takes place in the top echelons between now and “early 2023” has been taken out of local hands. It’s also reasonable to conclude that the BOT will do no more than install a placeholder team to fill the top spot until Baystate takes over.
• Quality Issues — Sources say BHS faces several quality issues, which likely have a direct bearing on the situation:
  • Contracting out of services, for example, procedures relating to cardiology, which Berkshire Medical Center (BMC) farms out to Baystate.
  • Loss of certification in some areas. Has BHS lost is position as an accredited teaching facility? An industry source told us it has.
  • Overall decline in patient care stemming from BHS’ inability to reach accord with its staff, primarily its nurses. Staff nurses say they are overworked, underpaid, short of help, with management deaf to its concerns. You would think the bean counters calling the shots at BHS would at some point realize that its nurses ARE the heart, soul, and core of any hospital.
  • Baystate has a better perception in the industry for patient care. It also has the region’s only Level 1 trauma center. It also seems to treat its staff better.
• Finances — This is where the depths get murky, with poor visibility, with a high risk of the bends. During FY2020, the hospital reported an overall surplus of just over $9.5 million. Yet some industry insiders say the bottom-line financial health of BHS is shaky, about in the same shape as when the BOT hired Phelps as CEO in 1993. Is BHS in debt? If so, why? How would that be possible if the information made public about its financial are on the up-and-up? What has senior management kept from the BOT, if anything? A reasonable and fair question is how can a non-profit institution be in bad financial shape, if it is, and yet generate yearly surpluses in the millions? Where is the money going? Would the BOT investigate? Does this question have anything to do with the potential acquisition by Baystate?
  • To be clear, none of this is to suggest any financial impropriety has occurred. To date, no evidence of that has emerged. The talk of acquisition, however, does raise certain financial aspects that would be germane to the story.

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Another burning question. What will be the economic consequences if Baystate swallows BHS whole and the latter becomes Baystate Berkshire Health (BBH)?

• Elimination of Redundancy — In plain English, jobs will be lost, mostly administrative functions. Why would BBH need two fully staffed HR departments, marketing and communications departments, finance departments, two CEOs, COOs, IT departments, and so on? Medical staff would appear to be safe. Everyone else should start working on their resumes, just to have a Plan B.
  • Baystate employs about 4,500 workers, BHS about 3,000. What invariably happens when one company takes over another is that the directors of the former will search thoroughly for ever area of duplication and eliminate them. This isn’t the Pittsfield School Department. This is the real world.
  • The positive would be a stronger, better-managed medical facility for the city of Pittsfield.

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There. We’ve sniffed it out, though we’re not exactly sure what “it” is. THE PLANET is convinced, however, that something MAJOR is in the works regarding BHS. We hope others in the local/regional/state media will probe further. THE PLANET’s just one little guy with his finger in the dyke. We’ve set the table. Now let’s see if others do the cooking.

Meanwhile, we note this statement from U.S. Rep. Richie Neal, our district’s fearless representative on Capitol Hill.

Neal praised Phelps’ “level hand” through a rocky time. Again, read between the lines. Looks like he’s saying it without saying it.

“Berkshire Health Systems has had a terrific leader for over 30 years with David Phelps. A level hand through this pandemic and a staunch advocate for Berkshire County’s unique health care needs, David has never wavered in his commitment to the community he serves.”

Right. Which to THE PLANET sounds like the owner’s endorsing the head coach of a football team a week before he fires him.

Yes, the dreaded Kiss of Death.

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“I learned everything I know about medicine from Richard Chamberlain and Vince Edwards” — Dr. Vinny Boombahtz.

LOVE TO ALL.

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