Upper-level BCMC employees to receive 20-percent salary bonuses | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Beaufort County Medical Center’s Chief Executive Officer Bill Bedsole is one of four upper-level hospital employees who were offered a 20-percent salary bonus to stay aboard, while the hospital tries to bail itself out of financial ruin. Bedsole, who tendered his resignation yesterday, was the first of the four to reject the bonus and abandon ship.

    The other three employees offered similar incentives by the BCMC Executive Committee are BCMC Medical Practice Administrator Susan Gerard, BCMC Chief Financial Officer Chris Riggs and BCMC Chief Nursing Officer Lynn Fisher, according to BCMC Executive Committee member Hood Richardson.

    Richardson said the aim of this combination of bonuses was to try to prevent a catastrophe, such as the loss of three crucial employees at one time. He said that losing Bedsole will not deal a devastating blow to the hospital.

    “We did not want people in high positions to jump and run when they saw something bad,” said Richardson. “That was to keep them in place until we decided what we were going to do.”

    Though it was reported in today’s Washington Daily News that BCMC Board of Trustees Chairman Sandy Hardy “put an interim CEO in charge of the hospital,” this morning Hardy, who was reached while on vacation in Costa Rica, said this was an untrue statement.

    “There is no interim CEO,” said Hardy. “The reporter must have misunderstood me.”

    Hardy emphasized that Bedsole was still employed by the hospital, only on administrative leave until next Tuesday, when the BCMC Board of Trustees and BCMC Executive Committee are scheduled to hold their regular meetings.

    “He’s still being paid,” said Hardy. “He’s on administrative leave, and he is still available.”

    On Tuesday, Hardy said he hopes that the BCMC Executive Committee will decide who will be the hospital’s CEO. It was reported in the Washington Daily News that Hardy hopes that the board will find a way to prevent Bedsole from leaving.

    “The board needs to see about keeping him here,” said Hardy, as quoted by the Washington Daily News.

    The special meeting called by Alice Mills Baxter, planned for today at 1 p.m., was canceled. Hardy said that the meeting “was not properly called according to the bylaws,” and was, this morning, in the process of sending an e-mail to BCMC administration to stop the meeting.

    When later contacted, BCMC Director of Marketing Pam Shadle said that the personnel issue at hand was handled without the boards having to meet. She said that Gerard will temporarily fill the power vacuum left by Bedsole’s absence, and echoed Hardy’s statement that there was no official “interim CEO.”

    “We are following our chain of command within our organizational chart,” said Shadle. “Bill Bedsole is on administrative leave, and Susan Gerard is managing things for the hospital on a day-to-day basis.”