Lou Bank's Letter:

June 17, 1997

Ivy Nelson
OHSU
3181 SW Jackson Park Road, Mail UHS-21
Portland OR 97201-3908

Ms. Nelson:

In our meeting of June 3, you—and the other attendees, Thonna Vela and Sandra Westfall—said you felt it was inappropriate that I had sent my article to The Oregonian, Willamette Week, and Senator Ron Wyden without first sending it to you. You said that we had to work as a team if we were going to improve the system. But "teamwork" means all parties being honest with one another and having a common goal. I sincerely believe I have been and remain ready to do all that.

I was told—in our meeting and in subsequent phone conversations with Ms. Vela—that the volunteer services department had been trying "for years" to institute a photo ID check as part of the standard hiring procedure for volunteers; I was told that OHSU management denied approval of said check because regular, paid employees of OHSU and Doernbecher did not have to show a photo ID to attain employment (requiring volunteer employees to do anything more than paid employees, you explained, left the hospital open to litigation under Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action laws). However, it appears that OHSU must, in fact, see photo ID for each and every paid employee; must, in fact, see a photo ID and a Social Security card or US-issued passport. Without seeing these items, your Human Resources department could not complete the federally-required I-9 forms, which verify US citizenship for each employee.

I don't know the source of your confusion on this issue, or where the misinformation began. But this much is clear: someone didn't want to admit that OHSU was—and is—at fault and believed that this excuse for the lack of ID confirmation was reasonably sound. Regardless of the source of the misinformation, the result is the same. I assume, upon receipt of this letter, that you will verify and confirm the truth I have just told you.

I am also concerned that I was asked by Ms. Vela to make changes to my notes of our 06/03/97 meeting (see enclosed). Had I done so, I too would be guilty of perpetuating disinformation (distinguished from misinformation because, had I acted as requested, I would have been deliberately fostering an untruth).

As a show of good faith, I faxed my notes to your office before mailing them out. The purpose was to ensure that we all walked away from the meeting with the same understanding. But Ms. Vela requested that I revise the notes to clearly read that all of the changes we discussed had, in fact, been in the works for years, that the volunteer department had been attempting to accomplish the very things I had noted in my article.

My letter, in fact, states nothing to the contrary, though, aside from the photo ID check, you failed to make that impression in our meeting. So why try to get me to state such a thing in writing? The only answer that I can imagine is that your legal department saw this as an opportunity to establish credibility, a "support document" they could use in court if security ever became an issue in litigation. Well, historical revisions don't pass muster in my book. The notes stand as they are, and they are an accurate reflection of our meeting.

Believe it or not, Ms. Nelson, I do have great admiration for Doernbecher. The work the hospital accomplishes is outstanding, and, in addition to my Monday-night volunteer work, I continue to work with Friends of Doernbecher to raise funds for the organization. However, OHSU and Doernbecher have failed to establish the most minimum standards of security in their volunteer hiring practices, and they have failed to provide adequate training for those volunteers.

Consider the security and training practices of The Eastwind Center: They have a six-week background check that includes six references, each of whom is interviewed thoroughly. (It is during this part of the check that most applicants are disqualified; on the other hand, you told me Doernbecher rarely phones references because it is your belief that no one would provide a bad reference.) They have extensive training sessions for each employee, totaling around 24 hours of training. (By my count, my orientation—it wasn't training—lasted 15 to 20 minutes; by your count, I had an hour to an hour-and-a-half of training. Either way, you fail to measure up to The Eastwind Center.) And, finally, no Eastwind Center volunteer is allowed to work alone with children until they have been viewed in-session a minimum of three times with staff. (My first evening at Doernbecher I was alone in a room with a young man for almost two hours, and, at his request, the door was shut.)

Yes, all of this costs money, and, yes, funding is hard to come by these days. But how much is OHSU spending on a new Doernbecher location? I understand the new location is important to streamlining operations, but is that more important than protecting physically damaged or injured children from potential abuse? Or from the damage that can be inflicted by poorly-trained staff?

I'm sorry we can't work together on improving the systems of Doernbecher's volunteer services. But until we share the same definition of teamwork, I can't be on your team.

Sincerely,

Lou Bank

cc: Ron Wyden
Peter Kohler
Ron Vinyard
Thonna Vela