Hospital Index

I asked district spokeswoman Sara Howley about all the money blown on business organizations, which often reciprocate the district's generosity with love-fest award ceremonies for NBHD and its officials. She said it helps drum up business for the district, which then benefits the medically needy.

Really? I always thought it was the other way around, that those chamber of commerce soirees were held to give lobbyists, businessmen, and various influence peddlers access to the public money trough.

Howley also claimed that all the expense money came from private funds. As if that matters. If the district didn't waste its "private" money, then it wouldn't need to continually raise our taxes. Meanwhile, as the high living continues, the district has been cutting medical programs and laying off workers to meet what is amounting to a budgetary crisis.

While I was wondering if a federal investigation of district spending was in order, NBHD officials were talking during the January board meeting about investigating, um, me.

Commissioner Braynon discovered I had obtained the account information through unofficial channels, so she urged NBHD General Counsel William Scherer to use "legal efforts" to determine the source.

Scherer seemed a bit taken aback by the request and noted that such information is available to the public anyway (though they'll stonewall you and try to charge you outrageous sums of money if you request it). "Some things are strategically protected," he said, "but not that."

Here's an idea for something to add to the strategically protected list: our money.

Paycheck Emergency

Because of a broiling bankruptcy battle, more than 70 emergency room physicians who work at four Broward hospitals weren't paid for December. Though there has been talk of a potentially disastrous walkout, angry and demoralized doctors continue on the job, trusting they will be paid in the future.

"We are all caught in the middle of this," says one ER doctor, who asked to remain anonymous. "We have mortgages to pay, we have bills to pay like everyone else. I am very angry that the Sun-Sentinel and no other newspaper [except New Times] has reported about this huge scandal."

While the doctors have been shuffled from company to company and continue to provide care, nobody is willing to compensate them for their work in December -- which amounts to more than $1.2 million in lost wages. Not their old firm, PhyAmerica, which is in bankruptcy. Not their new company, NB Ob/Gyn Physicians, which is owned by the embattled and politically connected Steven Scott. And not the tax-subsidized North Broward Hospital District, which signed a controversial contract with Scott in December (see "Deliver Us," January 29) and runs Broward General, Coral Springs, North Broward, and Imperial Point hospitals.

At the heart of the mess is Scott, who ran PhyAmerica into the ground while living a lavish lifestyle in Boca Raton. After resigning in disgrace this past December 2, he hired away the ER doctors from his old company, violating bankruptcy-court orders and enraging his debtors, who together lost more than $400 million. A judge recently found him in contempt of court, and a legal battle over the contract continues.

Scott has some binding ties with the district; he employs both NBHD's powerful district general counsel, Bill Scherer, and its lobbyist, Jim Blosser. He is also a huge financier of the GOP and Gov. Jeb Bush, who has loaded the district board with political and business supporters.

Hospital district CEO Wil Trower -- who makes $600,000 a year after a recent $196,000 raise -- signed the ER contract with NB on December 11, just nine days after Scott's resignation. While doctors contend that Scott promised they would be paid for their December work, the district's chief of emergency medicine, Wayne Lee, who is employed by Scott, disavows his boss' responsibility. "[Scott] does not have the obligation for this paycheck," Lee says. "We are trying hard to find a resolution."

Such words provide little solace to the doctors. "How can I tell my creditors that I am working very hard but not getting paid? No one would believe it," says the anonymous doctor, who fears being fired for speaking out. "I think the community has to be aware. Let's get to the bottom of this before there are no good ob-gyn and no good ER docs [left]."