“Kris, Kris, let’s have another drink! To celebrate your new child. May it be a son!”
I agreed, thinking, why not? We all started to pass the bottle around when a nurse came over to us. “You can’t drink that here,” she scolded. “This is a hospital.”
“But his wife is giving birth to a child!” Eniko yelled, slurring his words. “He is going to be a father again!”
We all were laughing and speaking loudly. The nurse looked embarrassed, and seeing that we weren’t going to cooperate, she told us we could move to the nurse’s lounge. “But you still cannot drink here,” she said. “This is a hospital.”
“Who gives a shit?” I slurred. “I am the assistant administrator at Providence Hospital!”
Mayer and Eniko hooted encouragement, but the nurse was appalled. Knowing that my wife was in labor, she didn’t make a big to-do about it, but only shook her head and left us in the nurse’s lounge.
Our second son was born at 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday, June 26, 1974. As with Subhash, we wanted to pick a name with a strong history of leadership behind it. We decided to call him Christopher, after Christopher Columbus, the great explorer and discoverer of America.
Looking back, I realized that it was not a good decision to ignore the page from my wife, to come home in that condition, and to drive after having drunk so much. But at the time, I did not think I’d had much to drink. I felt horrible about my behavior during a time that was urgent and stressful for Raj. I apologized to Raj afterward, telling her that somehow Eniko doctored the drinks and that I did not realize how strong they were. Raj would not accept my explanation. “You drank it,” she said. “Do not blame Eniko.”
Later, I also apologized to Skip for telling her to go home. She just laughed and said, “That’s okay. I knew you were not yourself.”
Chapter 17
In April 1974, Mr. Gilreath and I hosted a dinner for the eighty-five SPD employees at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Newport, Kentucky. We had reached our goal. The soiled reusable items were being processed and distributed according to procedures, and the department looked clean.
The employees wore nice suits and dresses, and we all enjoyed cocktails and an excellent dinner. Mr. Gilreath and I gave short speeches and then went around to speak with the employees and their spouses. The dinner did wonders for boosting their morale. Before, they had been referred to as the “Stupid People Downstairs,” and now they were being wined and dined at a posh club, and the hospital administrator was taking an interest in them.
During my speech, I told them, “You are the ones making this department work. It’s not the system, not the automation. It’s the people who make things happen. It is due to your hard work that we are having this wonderful evening.”
In the meantime, Mrs. Gilreath and I developed a case cart system, making sure that there was a cart loaded with supplies and every surgical instrument needed for each scheduled surgery case. The surgeons would have everything they needed right at their fingertips, whereas before, they might be missing instruments. Also, a lot of instruments were being thrown away in the linens instead of being sent to SPD for reprocessing. The new system would cut down on loss of instruments, saving the hospital money in the long run, and it would also capture the lost revenue from not charging the patients for all the supplies. It would also save the surgeons the hassle of sending their operating room technicians in search of supplies in the middle of an operation.
Unfortunately, the employees did not adapt well to the new system. One day, the nurses took matters into their own hands and refused to transport patients to the surgery department. They did not like all the changes we were making to their supply system, and they decided that this would be the most effective way to get our attention. At 7:00 a.m., while the surgeons were waiting for their patients to arrive for the first surgeries of the day, the nurses walked out on them.
“We’re not going to do anything until our demands are met,” they said.
Mrs. Monahan, the Surgery Department manager, immediately called Mr. Gilreath.
“I’m on my way,” Mr. Gilreath said, slamming down the receiver and immediately calling Mr. Prater, the director of personnel.
“You get your ass over to the hospital,” he growled. “The surgery staff has walked out. They are refusing to transport any patients to the operating rooms.”
After hanging up the phone, Mr. Prater became sick to his stomach and was so nervous that he was struggling to pull himself together.
Meanwhile, Mr. Gilreath sped ninety miles per hour to the hospital. The nurses and operating room technicians stood together in clusters, talking in low voices, and when he stormed into the hallway, a hush fell over the group.
“Who wants to talk to me?” Mr. Gilreath demanded in a loud voice. “You guys have a problem? Who wants to talk to me?”
At first, no one volunteered to speak, but finally, three employees came forward, one of them an OR technician named Robert, who seemed to be the self-appointed ringleader of the surgery staff. He was from a country in Africa and spoke in a British accent.
“We want to meet with you to tell you our demands,” Robert said. “There is a lot going on here that we don’t like.”
Mr. Gilreath was not in the mood for any nonsense. “I’m willing to listen to you at the end of the day, but right now, you get your asses in the OR suites and work with the
