Hospital CEO Aaron Robinson Misleads, Breaks Trust with Readers, Public In Newspaper Interview
By Roger W. Ashley, MD and Chris Van Hemelrijck, MD
(The two local esteemed physicians are responding to a
recent Robinson-only focused story in the South County weekly newspapers The
Independent and The Narragansett Times.)
It is with great interest that we read the article in The
Independent (5-15-2025) and The Narragansett Times (5-16-2025) regarding
comments made by South County Hospital Chief Executive Officer Aaron Robinson.
How wonderfully ironic that such a statement could be made by someone whose
leadership style is partly responsible for our local health care crisis. There
follow statements reaffirming what we already know, that access to primary care
providers is at a crisis point in RI. Robinson goes on to ask Rhode Islanders
to lobby their elected representatives to step up their support to the
beleaguered health care system.
He mentions that facing illness when your access to care is
limited can be a scary place to be. The irony is that Aaron Robinson is,
himself, primarily responsible for the loss of five Primary Care Providers from
the South County Health Care System in the past five years. In addition to
specialists in Cardiology - five physicians; in Oncology - three physicians and
an NP; in Urology - two physicians; in Obstetric - one physician. And low
reimbursement rates were hardly the reason for their departure since only one
of these providers had left the state and two had decided to retire early.
He further cites the difficulties with finding a PCP [primary care provider] stating
that he is on his fourth in five years. Actually as it happens, I (Dr. Ashley),
is also on his fourth in five years, although I doubt that we are in the same
situation since the first two of my four left because of Robinson’s style and
demeanor.
The article also cites legislative efforts to correct
deficiencies including in the uniquely low reimbursement rates compared to
those in our neighboring states of MA and CT.---particularly Health Insurance
Fairness (S.0681/H5832), Sponsored by Senator Susan V. Sosnowski and
Representative Theresa Tanzi.
Interestingly, rather than lobbying for their support,
Robinson has managed in some manner or other to offend at least two
legislators, once by shouting and demeaning one in a meeting and another by
refusing admission to a meeting to which they were led to believe they had been
invited , leaving them (us) in the lobby because we were not on the “official
list of invitees.”
In addition, his comments about “data based” care is perhaps
an excuse for dismissing several practitioners from South County Health who
were not seeing as many patients per hour as his ‘national standards’ suggested
that they should. Lack of resources (secretaries and nursing assistance) as
well as patient mix (elderly, first time visits) were apparently not
considered.
He then goes on to extol the “introduction of new
technologies” and the extraordinary pace of change in health care that
frustrates members in the community, including the advocacy group Save South
County Hospital. This group, made up of physicians and former Board of
Trustees, are not only profoundly aware of these challenges, they understand
that Aaron Robinson is not equipped to forge the partnership needed to
effectuate those changes. Save South County Hospital now enjoys the support of
all five of our local legislators in bringing about the change in leadership
that is necessary to meet those challenges.
