Concerned Citizens of Cedar County

Editor,
Color me impressed!!! Once again, I want to give a shout out to CCMH (our county owned hospital) and their new CEO Terry Nichols.
I’ve actually known several Hospital CEOs who were pretty impressive but Terry is truly awe-inspiring, the best Hospital CEO I’ve ever met. With Terry at the helm, I’m confident CCMH will become a hospital we can all be VERY proud of. The hospital is still improving by leaps and bounds and if you haven’t been there recently, I know you’ll be very impressed with all of the changes that’ve already been made.
I do want to dispel some of the rumors I’ve heard that he’s letting staff go and bringing in his own people. This is absolutely NOT true and nobody has been “fired”. They have replaced many of the “travelers” that had been brought on by previous management at a HUGE cost. Travelers are usually meant as a stop gap for hospitals and are, at most hospitals, NEVER intended as a long-term solution since they are VERY expensive. We’re talking $100-150 an hour and MORE for nurses! They were even filling their doctor positions in the Emergency Department with contract staff!
There are always going to be people who want to “do things the old way” because “that’s just the way we’ve always done it” and they don’t want to change. There’ll be people who resign because they no longer fit in. But I think most of the staff are SUPER excited to see the hospital finally moving in the right direction.
Terry did bring in Angie (someone he had worked with in the past) to fill a spot and if you ever get a chance to see this lady in action, I’m pretty positive that you will be duly impressed! I know I was! We were also very fortunate that Heather Johnson moved here because her husband took a job as a Coach in Eldo. She has a VERY impressive resume/background and the hospital was able to hire her as Executive Assistant to the CEO. They also have an amazing new CNO, Traci, who I think was brought on by the same transition team who hired Terry, unfortunately I haven’t had the opportunity to meet her but I hear wonderful things.
They’ve already addressed many of the concerns I had in the last several months and are in the process of addressing ALL of my remaining concerns and a few more that I didn’t even know about. I see they’re going above and beyond… I couldn’t be more impressed!
But I also want to thank the MANY wonderful employees at CCMH for their dedication and perseverance, who stuck it out and who’ve ALWAYS been such an asset to the hospital and our community. I think your perseverance finally paid off and CCMH is going to be a great place to work. I also want to thank the Hospital Board of Trustees for their part in making this happen.
You all know that myself and MANY other people in our community have been adamant that this was a management problem, not a money problem. I’m very thankful that we were successful in defeating the hospital tax levy increase because of “THIS”.
Thank you so much,
Cindy Malone
Concerned Citizens of Cedar County