Fort Bratten
I hope by now that most people have gotten over the notion that the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio took over CTRC in order to save it. “Saving” it somehow implies that UTHSC-SA has special skills or more effective skills that exceed those of who were doing such a “lousy” job of running CTRC. But I don’t think anyone at CTRC can remember a time when it’s security people threatened a patient with arrest for going to the side walk to smoke a cigarette.
Really. Apparently a patient was receiving an infusion which can take a while. He probably had a bag hanging from a pole on wheels so that he can still move around. He decides to go outside and smoke a cigarette. The rules say you can’t smoke on the premises so he heads for the sidewalk on the street. But before he gets there, he is accosted by a UTHSC-SA police officer who informs him that if he leaves the premises, he will be considered to be stealing the equipment he’s attached to and promises to arrest him if he does.
Needless to say, the paying patient is now seeking treatment elsewhere. Please spare me any explanations of this being one officer who is being dealt with appropriately. You could see this coming from a mile away. I’m sorry, when the rest of the campus freely refers to the police department as “Fort Bratten,” you have a problem.
As I understand it, the police department introduced themselves to CTRC by announcing that they would be enforcing parking regulations since they have been in the parking garage and found that drivers were going faster than 5 mph. Let’s assume that there even was a “speeding” problem in the parking lots–was this the most effective way to start their relationship with CTRC? Couldn’t they have done something like sending emails or fliers introducing the people at CTRC to UTHSC-SA regulations and then crack down if problems continued? Not if your organization is Fort Bratten.
Fort Bratten reflects a cultural problem at UTHSC-SA. The police department obviously has established an adversarial relationship with the rest of the organization. By allowing the relationship to be adversarial, the organization itself, UTHSC-SA, proves that it has serious issues in carrying out it’s mission for patient care. And this organization is supposed to improve CTRC’s patient services?
Filed under: CTRC, Cancer Therapy & Research Center, UT Health Science Center San Antonio, UTHSC-SA, UTHSCSA
