Injustice &
Unaccountable Managers:
A dangerous dynamic
 
 
Washington Whistleblower Week--W3 will be held in Washington D.C. May 12th thru 16th. Join Whistleblowers and civil rights activists around the country as they speak out against corruption and discrimination.
 
View excerpts of our upcoming documentary on whistleblowers in the clips below and browse the complete W3 schedule.
 
Then please complete our registration form.
 
Save the date and we’ll see you in DC!
Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo on significance of Whistleblowing.
Undisclosed Whistleblower speaks about experiences.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee
welcome statement
Whistleblower Roundtable.
03/10/08 No FEAR founder, Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, talks with other coalition members at a roundtable discussion on Whistleblowing.
03/10/08 Disguised to protect identity, this whistleblower speaks about the retaliation and intimidation that was applied after going public with the story.
03/10/08 Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Chair of Washington Whistleblower Week welcomes whistleblowers to the May celebration.
03/09/08 A roundtable discussion of whistleblowers sharing stories and support each other’s struggle for justice in the Federal government..
Whistleblower Roundtable
Insights, Ideas & Links
 
Hot Topic:
Whistleblower Week in Washington 2008
From the desk of the Honorable Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy (Member of Congress 1971 - 1991) Convenor, Whistleblower Week in Washington 2008 Chairman, Board of Directors, the No FEAR Institute
Tribunals and conferences, such as the Whistleblower Week in Washington, that search into the soul of our body politic are not one day affairs.  These events become etched into the fabric of history because of what those who participate in them do before they expose corruption and discrimination in our government and hospitals and what they do after they return home. It is our hope and expectation that those of us that have the courage to speak truth to power in our nation’s capital and those of us who support the courageous individuals that will testify and convene workshops during W3 – will make an indelible mark in history.
 
We are determined to make the 2nd anniversary of W3 and the 6th anniversary of the passage of the No FEAR Act (the first civil rights law of the 21st century) a moment in history, renowned for what this generation will have done to bring about changes to produce justice, equality and peace.
 
Be sure to contact your representatives and urge them to support critical legislation, such as the Congressional Disclosures Protection Act (HR 4650), the US Civil Rights Tax Relief Act (H.R.1540) Amendments to The Health Care Quality Improvement Act (HCQIA) of 1986 and No FEAR II.
Whistleblower Week in Washington W3 & Attorney Referral Service
SEMMELWEIS SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL 80 12th STREET, SUITE #307 WHEELING, WEST VIRGINIA 26003 www.semmelweis.org 724-678-2648 “Supporting Fair and Proper Due Process in Medical Peer Review”http://www.semmelweis.orgshapeimage_5_link_0
Speech delivered January 22, 2008 Washington, DC. Good Morning Honorable Congressman Wynn, other Honorable members of Congress in attendance, distinguished guests, colleagues, and members of the media.  Thank you for taking the time to appear here today.  It is an honor and privilege for me as the current President of Semmelweiss Society International (“SSI”) to be invited to appear here today.  I am pleased to present SSI’s view on this most important pending legislation.  SSI is also honored to have been given an opportunity to support Congressman Wynn’s proposed amendment to the Congressional Disclosure Protection Act of 2007 (“CDPA”) H.R. 4650.  The CDPA is the second major civil rights law of this century and a second in a series of continuing amendments to what has been commonly referred to as “NO FEAR LEGISLATION”.  
 
SSI’s membership is comprised of a large number of healthcare and legal professionals from around the nation.  Through years of experience, SSI member professionals have witnessed first hand how numerous healthcare institutions place profits and stockholder rates of return over the proper health care and well being of millions of American patients.  We are speaking on behalf of thousands of American’s who have been denied proper treatment and care.  Proper treatment and healthcare should be an American birthright.  Most of the healthcare institutions I speak about today currently receive hundreds of millions of dollars in Federal Taxpayer Aid to help treat the most vulnerable members of our society.   SSI believes and will work tirelessly to insure that healthcare institutions primary responsibility should be the well being of the American public’s health, not large profits for a few select stockholders, administrators and physicians who sell out their sworn oath to “DO NO HARM”.  These stockholders, administrators and physicians prey upon the poor and downtrodden, provide poor sub-standard healthcare at patient and taxpayer expense.  However, some of these self serving self proclaimed leaders of the industry charge the American taxpayer as though they were providing treatment to the President of the United States.  Some healthcare institutions provide sub-standard care and demand federal funds as if they provided superior care to the elite. SSI will try it’s best to continue to educate the American public about the dirty secrets of health care institutions and how some self serving profit driven health care institutions profit through intimidation, fraud, waste, etc of anyone who questions their methods.  Through its media sources and along with Congressman Wynn’s bill and support, hopefully, the healthcare system will finally become accountable for their actions.  Congressman’s Wynn amendment to CDPA is designed among other things to help improve patient care issues at hospital’s and other health care facilities.
 
The general public at large puts its faith, trust and lives in the hands of our nation’s healthcare institutions.  Most of the general public believes American Health Care Provider Institutions are the best in the world and gives it citizens the best possible health care.  This is true sometimes.  However, at some select healthcare institutions nothing could be further from the truth.  Truth be known, as much as it is hard to accept and fathom, some of our nations major healthcare institutions are driven by individual physician institutional leader’s profits.  Some hospital administrators and physician stockholders guided by high powered law firms literally rape the federally funded health care system for their personal gain and squash anyone whom questions them with their power and money.  These institutions bill for procedures never performed, deny procedures that are needed as they are not profitable, force physicians to perform procedures that are not necessary because they are profitable, deny patients procedures based upon insurance coverage, race, class, have non-medical business personnel  dictate treatment plans based upon profits, perform selected and sometimes unnecessary medical procedures based only upon Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates, mislead families when errors are made, rewrite patients charts when questions are asked, engage in patient dumping, demand staff to perform unnecessary tests that are profit makers, perform back dated after the fact tests when problems arise,  intimidate doctors and nursing staff with revocation of priviledeges when questions are asked, intimidate doctors with the threat of in-house private peer review procedures, falsify records to discredit Doctors and other professionals that in numerous instances cause licenses to be revoked or suspended, perform back room non-public peer reviews hearings that are more of a lynching than a review,  and use many other intimidating methods to keep their professional staff scared all in the name of increased profits from taxpayer funds. These administrators and select physicians use closed door proceedings to intimidate staff to pocket millions of taxpayer funds.  This amendment will strengthen the CDPA and allow honest physicians and other health care providers to come forward without the fear of reprisal.  Or at a minimum provide some long needed protection in the Federal Courts for those few courageous Americans whom take a stand against institutional corruption.  Believe it or not ladies and gentlemen, this piece of legislation may help hundreds of thousands of patients both poor and wealthy regardless of race, color, or creed.  
 
Numerous independent studies including the Institute Of Medicine’s report pointed out nearly 200,000 unnecessary yearly deaths in American healthcare facilities.  These studies by numerous think tanks should force the current administration to demand accountability from the healthcare facilities receiving and/or not receiving federal. Funding.  If airlines, steel mills, mines, subways, buses or any other industry produced this many fatalities, we would all be shocked, horrified and demand action. The same should be demanded upon hospitals and other healthcare facilities that are funded with and without taxpayer funds. Healthcare is one of the largest big business’ in the nation/world.  With many millions of dollars at their disposal, these institutions, along with their high powered lobbyists and law firms have done an excellent job of quashing many individuals’ attempts to change the current system and hold them accountable for their actions.  It is now time to adopt and pass Congressmen Wynn’s amendment and demand change.  
 
Yesterday was Martin Luther King Day.  The late Reverend King had a DREAM.  His dream was slow to come to fruition.  But with hard work and support from his followers and his believer’s intestinal fortitude, Dr. King’s dream continues to come to fruition in this country.  His dream gains momentum every day and every minute after his tragic death.  The Reverend King’s Dream builds upon itself.  SSI also has a DREAM that all men’s healthcare is created equally and all mankind’s healthcare is not created by his race, color, creed, size of checkbook balance etc.  We at SSI demand change in the system and can only perform that task with the help of the government, people like Congressmen Wynn and others who care deeply about the eroding dollar driven health care system.  
 
Ethical doctors and other healthcare specialists have tried for years to point out problems within their individual hospitals and other healthcare facilities only to face retaliation, and professional assassination. Hospitals and other healthcare facilities have had at their disposal a dirty little secret which the public is not aware.  Unlike most corporations which can be tried through the civil courts, physicians and other healthcare professionals who attempt to improve healthcare at hospitals can face intimidation, reprisal, and professional assassination without having any access to a civil trial in which to expose the issues. In the current system of administrative law, physicians handled this way have no more rights than “Enemy Combatants”. Hospitals quash these ethical and caring doctors by calling them “Disruptive” and have used administrative law granted by Congress in 1986 to try to intimidate and destroy these heroic doctors in closed rooms instead of in the public light.  This amendment to CDPA could change all that.  
 
Doctors who are aware of this must make very hard decisions; whistle blow and face professional assassination, or look the other way such as occurred and is a well documented case at a Tenet hospital (one of many documented examples in the U.S.A.) in California several years ago.  This one case of many  in which the medical staff knowing that patients were dying and receiving unnecessary cardiac surgery did not speak up and allowed the hospital, its administrators and shareholders  to make money at the cost to the public.
 
Congressman Wynn’s Act along with his supporters in Congress realizes that change is necessary for the health and safety of the American people. Semmelweis Society and members of Congress like Wynn want and expect accountability of any facility which tries to quash someone who is trying to help improve healthcare by forcing accountability of one’s action. With Congressman’s Wynn’s act, doctors will no longer fear reprisal since they will have “due process” in the Federal Courts, and not in some “star-chamber” where the doctor’s future is decided upon by those administrators who want to increase profits at the expense of quality care.  Can we as Americans afford to stand by and watch the pain and suffering of hundreds of thousands of individuals just to maintain profits for a select few profit mongers.  A vote against this bill is a vote for the status quo.  It is also a vote against your aged parents, relatives, uninsured folks, laid off workers, temporally out of work folks, the poor, the downtrodden, folks that can’t afford COBRA,  employees of small business with no insurance and all American Citizens  that depend on the federal Medicare, State Medicaid and other funded health care systems.  Your neighbors and friends is whom we are talking about here.  We all know someone caught up in this massive mess of a profit driven system we don’t care about.
 
The American public can only truly anticipate receiving the best medical care possible under any personal financial situation if and only if healthcare professionals know that they have protections afforded them under the law.  Having laws in place to protect them to right a wrong and not face retribution and professional assassination.  Otherwise healthcare professionals will continue looking the other way and allowing the public unnecessary suffering and in some cases pre-mature death.
 
I again want to thank the Honorable Congressman Wynn, other Honorable members of Congress, distinguished guests, colleagues, and members of the media for taking the time to appear hear today.  
 
Designated SSI representatives are available via appointment with anyone desiring to continue this discussion in detail.   Please feel free to contact SSI with any further questions.
 
Thanks again for your valuable time to listen to this most important issue.
 
 
 
No
Fear
Institute
Tribunal
Announcement
 HYPERLINK  www.nofearinstitute.org
(for Washington Whistleblower Week info)
 
SUGGESTED GUIDELINES -- FOR PREPARING YOUR TESTIMONY
Oral & Written Statement Outline
 
Last year, over fourty courageous individuals testified before a panel composed of Members of Congress and prominent civil and human rights activist.  A transcript of the testimonies will be presented to Congress.  To participate in the NO FEAR Tribunal, please send your statement to:  HYPERLINK "mailto:nofearinstitute@aol.com" nofearinstitute@aol.com by April 30th.
 
 
Purpose of the Tribunal: A fact-finding hearing to gather information about allegations of mismanagement and/or wrongdoings related to blatant discrimination and reprisal against whistleblowers.
Statements: Must be chronologically and orderly written. Choose points that have policy relevance to current legislation, No Fear Act II Bill, Congressional Disclosure Act (CDA H.R. 4650), and Civil Rights Tax Relief Bill (HR 1540).
Oral statements: no more than five double-space pages. Only those persons selected to give a testimony need to submit an oral statement. Oral statements can be paraphrased or a summary of your longer, written statement. Place your summary points upfront and highlight key points. Statements should convey facts, contain original analysis and clearly state a position. Selection will be made from your one page proposal submitted before April 30, 2008.
Section One: Start your story with your bio. The length of the bio should be no more than ¼ of a page. The bio should include your name, state, employment position, current employment status and academic credentials.
Section Two: This section of your testimony should describe your reported injury or violation. What was the injury the result in filing an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaint or whistleblower complaint? For example, you filed an EEO complaint based on race, sex, sexual harassment, etc. You filed a Whistleblower complaint based on what violation? Where did you file your complaint? Was the complaint filed within your current or former agency or outside of your current or former agency, i.e. EEOC, U.S. District Court, Federal.
Section Three: Type of reprisal/retaliation you were subjected to; for example, you received a letter of reprimand; you were harassed; you were put on suspension, you were fired from your job; or, you were forced to resign or forced out on retirement.
Section Four: What is the current status of your EEO complaint/lawsuit/whistleblower complaint?
Section Five: What bill or legislation will address your situation, for example, Congressional Disclosure Act H.R. 4650, US Civil Rights Tax Relief Act, H.R. 1540 and/or the No Fear II Bill (to be introduced by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee by mid-April).
Note: To avoid defamation, remove all names of supervisors and managers. Use the term management.
 
Rev. Walter Fauntroy suggest that you consider the following points of persuasion in your presentation:
 
Below are the 5 steps of persuasion Rev. Walter Fauntroy recommends for preparing a one page statement for oral testimony. Per Rev. Fauntroy request, he has used this format when giving congressional testimony.  This format has worked for him and other Members of Congress. We would strongly recommend that you consider the points of persuasion below.
– Selection Director ( No FEAR Coalition)
 
 
************************************************
Five Steps to Speed up Persuasion
Step 1: A Get their ATTENTION
Step 2: N Show them a NEED
Step 3: S Show them how the need is SATISFIED
Step 4: V Give them a VISION of the need being satisfied
Step 5: A Ask them to take an ACTION
Your purpose is to get legislation to protect you. Keep your eye on the ball.
For efficiency, Whistleblower Week3 is to get legislation passed. Prepare your five minute statement using the A N S V A format and send it in for review. Submit an attached addendum to your one page statement that will elaborate the points made in your testimony.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CONFERENCE PRE-REGISTRATION FORM
(Please submit a separate pre-registration form for each registrant)
 
 
There is no fee for conference participation.  Donations are gratefully accepted. Please consider contributing $10, $25, $50 or $100 to help underwrite this conference.  However, there are space limitations and pre-registration is therefore required.  To ensure your participation, please complete and return this pre-registration form to our office at the address provided below by April 30, 2008. There will also be on-sight registration. You may cut and paste this form directly into the body of any email response.
 
 
 
Name:
 
(Name will appear on badge as listed above)
Title:
 
 
Organization:
 
 
Address:
 
 
City / State / Zip Code:
 
 
Phone:
Fax:
 
 
E-mail:
 
 
Comments:
 
 
 
 
 
MAIL OR FAX THIS FORM TO:
 
Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy
No FEAR Institute
1739 9th St NW
Washington DC 20001
Phone:  301-320-3021
Fax:  301-320-6899
E-mail:   nofearinstitute@aol.com
 
 
 
 
For a PDF copy of the recent GAO Report on the No FEAR I Act click GAO report March 2008 Judgment fund.pdfHome_files/GAO%20report%20March%202008%20Judgment%20fund.pdfHome_files/GAO%20report%20March%202008%20Judgment%20fund_1.pdfshapeimage_6_link_0
For Immediate Release # # # Washington, DC — In a stunning critique of last week’s US Government Accounting Office report titled, “The Judgment Fund:  Status of Reimbursements Required by the No FEAR Act and Contract Disputes Act,” the No FEAR Institute today called for immediate Congressional oversight of the Judgement fund and for Congress to enact No FEAR Act II legislation that is designed to address the shortcomings of No FEAR Act I. Speaking for the institute, Chairman of the Board and former Congressman Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy said “Nearly a decade after the No FEAR Act was signed into law, this report codifies what everyone thought—that No FEAR I, with all the protections that Congress and the White House meant to provide—has failed to deliver. And it’s time to do something about it.” Citing several of the report’s findings, Rev. Fauntroy continued, “the Act has definitely not changed the chronic culture of discrimination and retaliation within the Federal sector.”   Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayou, who blew the whistle on toxic mining in a landmark case that inspired the introduction of No FEAR Act I, concurred with Rev. Fauntroy. “We really have to see the human face that lies hidden beneath the sterile language of this report. We’re talking about people’s lives here—jobs that are lost, decent, honest, hard working people are being targeted and destroyed, people literally sicken and die under the crushing pressure of orchestrated harassment within the working culture of their agency. It is truly heartbreaking to see the data in this report—essentially a government watchdog denouncing the government.” The findings of the report include: Agencies continually stall and prolong settlement agreements until employees either get sick, give up or leave the agency. Agencies play hard ball and litigate complaints until employees lose on a “technicality.”  In such cases the Agencies won’t have to repay the judgment fund. [ Example: The Commerce Class, which DoC litigated for 13 years, was dismissed not on merits; but on a timeliness technicality] Settlements are made for low amounts and are often coupled with the forced retirement of employees; Employees who file complaints are soon forced on Performance Improvement Plans (a management tool for retaliation rather than corrective action for deficient performance); and later fired; Departments have established class action funds, etc (taxpayers money) to cover the litigation cost.   The arbitrary compensatory damage cap limits awards to Federal workers and the subsequent taxes that are taken from employee settlements. Dr. Adebayou cites these practices as the root cause for why the “spirit of the No FEAR Act has not been realized throughout the Federal Sector.” According to Adebayou “the reimbursement requirement in NO FEAR I was a critical step towards making agencies accountable.  Clearly more needs to be done, including disciplinary sanctions against managers who violate anti-discrimination and whistleblower protection laws.” The No FEAR Institute is dedicated to the full implementation of the No FEAR Act. # # #
03/09/08 More roundtable discussion of whistleblowers sharing stories and support each other’s struggle for justice in the Federal government..
 
Related links http://www.allianceforpatientsafety.org  http://www.semmelweis.orghttp://www.allianceforpatientsafety.org/http://www.semmelweis.orgshapeimage_8_link_0shapeimage_8_link_1
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