Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Loretto execs given unspecified “reprimand” after Gold Coast jewelry store vax give-away, among other things

Monday, Mar 22, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Block Club Chicago on December 15, 2020…

Chicago’s vaccination campaign has officially begun, marking the beginning of the end of the pandemic, officials said.

The city gave its first dose of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine to doctors, nurses and a patient care technician Tuesday morning at Loretto Hospital. It kicked off what officials say will be a year-long effort to get as many people as possible vaccinated in Chicago to end the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is, I fully believe, the beginning of what will be the end of COVID-19 here in Chicago,” said Dr. Allison Arwady, head of the Chicago Department of Public Health.

* Block Club Chicago today…

Loretto Hospital vaccinated ineligible people at a luxury Gold Coast watch and jewelry shop where the hospital’s chief operating officer is a high-spending and frequent customer.

Loretto Hospital and its executives, including Chief Operating Officer Dr. Anosh Ahmed and Chief Executive Officer George Miller, are already embroiled in controversy for steering doses toward organizations with which they have ties. Ahmed was heavily criticized after Loretto held a vaccination event at Trump Tower — where Ahmed and another hospital leader live — and after Ahmed told people he vaccinated millionaire Eric Trump.

Block Club has learned Loretto Hospital also held a March 3 vaccination event at a Gold Coast shop called Geneva Seal, which sells jewelry and designer watches worth $20,000 — and more. Ahmed is a frequent customer there and has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at the shop, a source said.
Credit: Loretto HospitalDr. Anosh Ahmed is the chief operating officer of Loretto Hospital.

The shop at 112 E. Oak St. is far from Loretto Hospital — and the vaccinations were offered to ineligible people who own and work at the high-end boutiques along the Gold Coast, as well as their family and friends, sources said. The Austin hospital is meant to serve and vaccinate people on the West Side, where coronavirus has devastated communities of color.

* The hospital’s board of trustees includes two state legislators, Sen. Kimberly Lightford and Rep. La Shawn Ford. Both attended a media event with the governor today, but the video conked out and I’ve been waiting to see if they took questions about the hospital. But let’s go to Block Club Chicago again…

Loretto Hospital’s board said it has reprimanded two of its chief executives the same day Chicago’s health chief said the hospital let “well-connected” people jump the vaccination line.

Board members would not say what punishments will be doled out to Loretto Hospital CEO George Miller and COO Dr. Anosh Ahmed — but the hospital already has had its supply of coronavirus vaccine doses cut off by the city. Dr. Allison Arwady, chief of the city’s health department, said officials are investigating events where the hospital vaccinated ineligible people and gave shots outside of the West Side community.

Arwady expressed serious concerns about Loretto’s vaccination program during a Friday call with reporters, saying the hospital has lost community trust and officials don’t feel comfortable sending precious vaccine doses there for the time being. The accusations against the hospital are particularly “unacceptable” because Loretto is in Austin, a Protect Chicago Plus neighborhood that has been hit hard by COVID-19 and where the city has been trying to boost vaccinations, Arwady said.

The hospital’s board has taken “appropriate actions of reprimand against Miller and Ahmed for their role in the mistakes of judgment,” Rep. LaShawn Ford, who sits on Loretto’s board and represents the area in the state Legislature, said in a statement.

It would be nice to know what measures they took. Their last 990 form shows the hospital’s former CEO made $840,000 a year while its best-paid physician made just $165K.

…Adding… Press release…

AFSCME Local 1216—the union representing nurses at Loretto Hospital on the West Side of Chicago—issued this statement following the latest in a series of revelations about the alleged misappropriation of COVID-19 vaccine doses by the hospital’s top management.

“As the safety net hospital for the city’s West Side, we have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said D Sutton, a registered nurse and the president of AFSCME Local 1216. “Loretto nurses have been on the front lines of our COVID unit. I and many others have been sickened in the line of duty, some of us so seriously that we had to be hospitalized ourselves.

“Now that the safe, effective COVID vaccines are available, we have been the ones delivering the shots to protect our community. Our work is critically important and we do not want it disrupted.

“We call on the city to restore Loretto Hospital’s supply of vaccine doses. Our community which has been systematically ignored and under-resourced for decades should not be punished now for the reported actions of a few.

“To our community, know that Loretto nurses are here for you, working to keep you healthy and safe. Understand that taking the vaccine is the way to protect yourself, your family and get back to normal in Chicago as quickly as we can.”

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Unclear on the concept

Monday, Mar 22, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Wirepoints…

The Illinois legislature’s biggest failure during the pandemic has been its complete abdication of responsibility over the management of the pandemic itself – Gov. Pritzker has been running the state’s response via executive fiat for over a year.

The result has been a disaster for democratic norms. Lawmakers should have stepped in and authorized the governor’s emergency rules or passed their own laws at the start of the pandemic. But they did neither.

No matter their excuses, Illinois lawmakers no longer have reasons for inaction. The curve has been flattened. There’s no risk of running out of hospital beds or ICU resources. Daily cases have collapsed. And most importantly, vaccines are being rolled out at an increasing rate. Herd immunity is expected by the end of April.

Gov. Pritzker should be stripped of his powers by the legislature immediately. That’s especially true now that Pritzker has added another incremental phase to his plan instead of fast-tracking a full reopening.

Yes, because a body that officially sat in near silence throughout the pandemic ought to now step up and run the state because that would somehow be better.

I often get the distinct impression reading takes like this that either the authors know nothing about how the General Assembly operates, or are being totally disingenuous.

…Adding… And yes I’m aware, as commenters have pointed out, that their “facts” are ridiculous as well. In my defense, I just figured that was a given.

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*** UPDATED x1 *** Days before telling every political reporter in the state that he was solely focused on governing, Pritzker wrote his campaign a $35 million check

Monday, Mar 22, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Friday…

This should put the speculation to rest: A-1: $35,000,000.00 JB for Governor https://t.co/Es1SqTGHK1

— Rich Miller (@capitolfax) March 20, 2021

If you click the link, you’ll see that Pritzker wrote the check on Friday, March 11th, a week before he reported depositing it.

* Tribune…

Pritzker has repeatedly dismissed questions about his political future as the 2022 campaign season has begun, saying he is focused on public health efforts to deal with COVID-19 and help restore the state’s economy in a post-pandemic environment.

“I’m just focused on the job that I’ve got today and making sure we get through this pandemic and get everybody vaccinated,” Pritzker said Monday in an interview with the Tribune.

That interview took place three days after Pritzker wrote the check. So, apparently, he wasn’t telling the entire truth when he said he was “just focused” on his job as governor. And he said that in pretty much every interview. From his interview with Hannah Meisel…

“My focus really has just been keeping people healthy, safe and keeping the economy going,” Pritzker told NPR Illinois. “The politics will take care of itself in the end.”

Not sure why he would undercut his own words like that, so we’ll see how that works out for him.

* Sun-Times…

The $35 million contribution isn’t exorbitant for Pritzker, whom Forbes has dubbed the richest politician in the nation with a net worth of $3.5 billion.

It’s only a fifth of the $171 million Pritzker spent to defeat multi-millionaire Republican ex-Gov. Bruce Rauner in 2018, a clash of investment titans that went down as one of the most expensive gubernatorial races in American history.

And it’s well short of the $58 million Pritzker dumped into an ill-fated ballot initiative last fall to amend the state constitution to allow for a graduated state income tax system. The governor was outdueled in November by fellow billionaire Ken Griffin, whose $53 million helped persuade voters to reject the plan.

It’s also short of the $50 million Rauner plunked down just before the beginning of the 2018 cycle.

* Crain’s…

Asked about when the governor might formally announce or whether such a large donation should be viewed as a sign Pritzker is worried about his chances, campaign spokesman Quentin Fulks said in an email, “Given the increasing number of Republicans who have declared their candidacies for governor in 2022, Gov. Pritzker wanted to ensure that he was ready to respond to their false and misleading attacks if necessary.”

A handful of Republicans have already tossed their name in for the 2022 race: state Sen. Darren Bailey, businessman Gary Rabine, former state Sen. Paul Schimpf and Christopher Roper, a downstate resident.

“Over the past two years, the governor has led Illinois through a global pandemic by listening to the experts, not the anti-science conspiracy theorists currently running in the Republican primary, while improving the lives of millions of Illinoisans through his actions,” Fulks said, also citing other Pritzker accomplishments on infrastructure spending, health care, and women’s rights.

*** UPDATE *** Tribune…

He did so again Monday during an event touting a new mass vaccination site in Forest Park. “I’m focused on getting us past this pandemic keeping people safe and healthy in the state of Illinois,” Pritzker told reporters.

“Any of that support for my committee is really designed as a preventive measure in the event that Republicans continue in any more public way to try to attack the Democratic agenda of standing up for working people or to frankly lie about the Democratic agenda,” Pritzker said.

“We’re doing what’s right for people all across the state of Illinois, making sure that working families get what they need to stay in their homes, to get jobs, to raise their wages, etc. And so, those resources will be used simply to fend off those illegitimate attacks,” he said.