Nurses ask 25 Investigates and state to probe hospital ‘Healthcare Heroes Fund’

The Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) has asked Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell’s office to examine a fundraising campaign Anna Jaques Hospital ran during the Covid-19 pandemic called “Healthcare Heroes Fund” that raised more than $200,000.

Anna Jaques is an 83-bed non-profit community hospital in Newburyport that serves the North Shore, Merrimack Valley, and southern New Hampshire. It has 1,200 employees and more than 200 physicians on staff, according to the hospital’s website.

A hospital spokesperson told 25 Investigates, “All funds and resources were distributed appropriately to support our dedicated team in providing exceptional care to the community as we navigated the unique needs of an unprecedented global health crisis.”

According to an expired donation link, Anna Jaques created the “Healthcare Heroes Fund” in the spring of 2021 to, “support our nurses, physicians, respiratory therapists, and staff who are fighting the pandemic on the front lines.” An April 2020 Facebook post advertising the fund said it, “directly supports our crisis response efforts and ensures that our front-line caregivers have the critical resources needed to face this pandemic head-on.” Anna Jaques is affiliated with Beth Israel Lahey Health System. Fund marketing said that all donations would remain in Newburyport.

The World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic in March 2020. An estimated 2,224,337 people became infected in Massachusetts and nearly 25,000 died from it here, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

Kevin Kenney said he donated to the “Healthcare Heroes Fund” after spending 8 nights fighting Covid in the intensive care unit at Anna Jaques in November 2021.

“It meant a lot because I was really on my deathbed. I was almost saying goodbye to my family, after a few nights because I was just having such a hard time breathing,” Kenney told investigative reporter Ted Daniel, “We really wanted to donate some money to the nurses that took care of me. They suggested that we give to the nurse’s heroes fund and that that money would go to the nurses that took care of us.”

Kenney said he held a benefit at a sports bar he used to own in Salisbury and raised about $800 for the fund.

“My expectation was it was going back to the department, back to the ICU, giving them maybe some gift cards or something to help them and their families,” Kenney explained.

25 Investigates reviewed correspondence between the MNA and hospital administrators. The MNA is the union that represents Massachusetts nurses including Anna Jaques employees.

On November 11, 2023, The MNA asked Anna Jaques CEO, Dr. Glenn Focht for a “detailed accounting of the total amount raised into the Healthcare Heroes Fund, an accounting of how those funds were allocated at Anna Jaques, and the total remaining balance of the fund.” In the letter, MNA Director of Strategic Campaigns Dana Simon wrote that the MNA had made the same request 7 previous times verbally and in writing beginning in February 2023.

“Since we started making these inquiries of AJH (Anna Jaques Hospital) management, the AJH web pages specific to the Healthcare Heroes Fund have been deleted. All links to the pages for the fund in previously published solicitations have become unavailable,” Simon wrote.

Simon questioned the hospital’s record keeping for the fund and cited what he alleged were conflicting responses about how much money was raised.

In meetings with hospital leadership, Simon wrote that the MNA was told, “that management is having difficulty tracking the funds in more detail, because there was some sort of link to BIDMC (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) in Boston; that the contributions go to Boston.”

25 Investigates asked Haverhill based attorney Marsha V. Kazarosian, past President of the Massachusetts Bar Association (MBA) and MBA Executive Management Board member to review the correspondence between the union and hospital leadership.

She said the questions being asked by the MNA are, “absolutely fair” based on fund marketing that advertised donations would directly benefit frontline workers.

“You’re asking for a specific purpose and you’re talking about people, individuals. You’re not talking about an entity or an organization. You conjure the image of a person, you know, a nurse or somebody in the field, they are helping others,” Kazarosian said.

The MNA declined to speak on-camera citing an ongoing investigation by the Attorney General’s office. A spokesperson for Attorney General Campbell said, “we are not able to confirm, deny, or comment at this time.”

Anna Jaques responded to the MNA in February 2024 with a written memo that contained a detailed accounting of the donation amounts received and a breakdown of expenses the hospital incurred during the pandemic.

In the memo, Martha Lipchitz O’Connor, Executive Director, Labor for Anna Jaques said the “Healthcare Heroes Fund” raised $208,461 over a 3-year period and was “able to offset some of the unexpected expenses of the pandemic, but Fund donations only covered a fraction of the overall costs to the Hospital.”

According to Lipchitz O’Connor’s memo, “the unprecedented nature of the Pandemic required AJH to change clinical and operational practices to provide care and ensure the safety of our employees and staff.

The changes included, but were not limited to, reconfiguring hospital spaces, training staff on new clinical practices, implementing different sanitization practices, supplying large amounts of personal protective equipment, and pivoting to remote work streams.”

The hospital says it spent $515,495.63 on safety measures for employees including lab tests, surgical masks, disinfecting wipes, and HEPA filters, $869,693 on 3 years of covid sick pay for hospital employees, and $98,435.48 on gifts for staff including ice cream socials, Thanksgiving pies, turkey dinners, and logoed employee apparel.

Anna Jaques administrators declined to speak to 25 Investigates on camera. A hospital spokesperson said, “Anna Jaques Hospital is appreciative of the generous support our frontline workers received from the community during the COVID-19 pandemic. We implemented several initiatives to support the health and safety of our nurses, physicians, clinical teams, and staff during this difficult time, including supplying large amounts of personal protective equipment, reconfiguring hospital space and providing enhanced employee engagement events.

These expenses were costly and unexpected, and the donations to the Healthcare Heroes Fund covered a fraction of the overall costs of these initiatives.”

The MNA called the hospital’s explanation of how the funds were spent “farcical” in an email to the Attorney General’s Office and described Anna Jaques’ accounting as “just a laundry list of more than a million dollars of ongoing and mostly routine hospital expenditures…”

“This is what you want to avoid when you are creating a fundraising event and you want specificity to avoid this kind of questioning or at least head it off at the pass,” Kazarosian said.

“I think a lot of people donate to these funds, expecting them to go to the right location and to the right people. And if they haven’t done that, then we’ve got to understand why,” Kevin Kenney said.

The MNA said its still waiting to hear back from the Attorney General’s Office on the status of its complaint.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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