The nurses and technicians still would not have it. “We aren’t going to work until we know that you are going to negotiate with us,” they said.
Mr. Gilreath turned on them fiercely. “You walk out on these patients lined up in the hallway, and I will see to it that you get jobs nowhere in the entire country!”
The employees opened their mouths to argue, but the look on Mr. Gilreath’s face silenced them. Seeing that he was not going to back down from his statement, they reluctantly agreed to do the surgeries and to wait until the end of the day to meet with him.
By the time I arrived at work at 8:30, the news about the walkout had spread through the hospital, and the atmosphere was tense. Mr. Gilreath stopped by my office and shared with me what happened. “I’m meeting with them at 3:30, when all the patients are finished,” he said. “They have some nerve to do what they did this morning. If they think I’m going to let them take over the hospital, they are dead wrong.”
At 3:30, all the nurses and technicians came downstairs to the SPD conference room. While Mr. Gilreath went into the room to talk to them, Mr. Poll and I waited anxiously in our offices. An hour and a half later, Mr. Gilreath stopped by our offices.
“It’s done,” he said. “I heard all their complaints, and I’ve gotten them to understand.”
Their chief concern was: “Who is Mrs. Gilreath to make changes, and what are her qualifications? What is she doing with Kris?” This was a sensitive subject with them, and Mr. Gilreath answered “Mrs. Gilreath is a surgical nurse. She has more than fifteen years of experience in the surgery department. She is working with Kris and the preparation/sterilization supervisor to develop the instrumentation, and she has volunteered her service to help the surgery department.”
They accepted this reluctantly, and at one point, someone said, “We know the SPD personnel and Kris Bedi are trying to make things happen, but we prefer going back to the system as it was at St. Mary’s.”
“That will not be acceptable,” Mr. Gilreath said sternly. “Let them finish this study, and let’s see what they come up with. We will discuss the recommendations, and then they will be implemented. All of these changes are for the sake of improving patient care.”
At one point in the meeting, an employee who was slouched in his chair tried to shift his position, getting up slightly so he could sit up straight. Mr. Gilreath, in the middle of speaking, suddenly pointed his finger at the employee and yelled, “Sit down! I’m not done yet!”
Shaken up, his face turning red, the employee stuttered, “Sir, sir, I was not getting ready to leave.”
Mr. Gilreath, Mr. Poll, and I laughed about this later. “You should have seen his face. He looked so scared,” Mr. Gilreath said with a laugh. Then, more seriously, he said, “But it is necessary to put some fear into the employees. If you let them have their own way and take advantage of you, they will be running the hospital, not you.”
At the end of the meeting, the employees felt a little relieved, although not completely satisfied when they realized that Mr. Gilreath wasn’t going to let them go back to the traditional way of doing things. They each shook his hand as they filed out of the room, having promised that from that point on they would cooperate with my efforts to improve their operations.
Later, Mr. Gilreath and I talked about involving people from the Surgery Department in the study. We both felt it would be great to get the ringleader on our side so one day I approached Robert, the OR technician.
“Robert, since you are so concerned with these changes and with patient care,” I said, “we would like you to become a member of our team to work on the surgery study.”
Robert stared at me, stunned. “Me? You want me to help you guys?”
“Sure. We think you would be a great asset to our study.”
“Okay, that would be great,” he said.
I also asked Belinda, an outspoken RN, to join our team. She was always speaking her mind about how the department should be improved, and we thought she would be a good person to have on our side as well.
In September 1974, my team and I finished the report. Mr. Gilreath and the Surgery Department manager helped me present the study to the surgical committee, which consisted of the surgeons and the chief anesthesiologist. All along, the surgical committee had viewed the study negatively. The surgeons wanted to do away with the Friesen concept altogether and go back to the way things had been at St. Mary’s Hospital.
During the presentation, the surgeons sat side by side at the other end of the conference table, listening to us with solemn expressions. Dr. Zenni, an orthopedic surgeon and the chief of the committee, sat in the middle. He listened with great interest and asked several pointed questions, but it was difficult to tell what he thought. He had a stern face, and at times, it seemed he would never accept our proposal.
Mr. Gilreath and I were determined. At the end of the presentation, Mr. Gilreath said, “Give us just three months with this new case cart system. Once we implement these changes, we can always go back. I assure you that if these changes do not work as Kris is recommending, I’ll be the first one to revert this whole thing to whatever you guys want. Please just give us three months.”
Dr. Zenni nodded his head solemnly. After conferring momentarily with the other surgeons, he said reluctantly, “Okay,
