Does Valley Children’s prioritize patient care or profitability? It’s a fair question | Opinion

Reality Check is a Fresno Bee series holding those in power to account and shining a light on their decisions. Have a tip? Email tips@fresnobee.com.

When Valley Children’s Hospital announced advanced treatment programs for pediatric cancer would be funded by a $15 million private donation, the reaction should’ve been 100% positive.

Even joyous.

Once the programs get established and certified, patients in need of bone marrow transplants and CAR T-cell therapy (a form of immunotherapy for blood cancer) will no longer have to travel to the short list of hospitals in Los Angeles or the Bay Area that offer them. It’s simply tremendous news.

Unfortunately, positive takeaways from last week’s announcement must be tempered with brow furrowing and side-eye.

Opinion

Not simply because the timing smelled like a PR stunt concocted to dispel the cloud of distrust that has hovered over the multihued Madera County institution for more than a month. Since the community found out about the exorbitant salaries being paid to CEO Todd Suntrapak and his executive team — far more than their counterparts at similar and even larger-sized children’s hospitals.

More so because the creation of a donor-funded cancer treatment program, in light of our better understanding of Valley Children’s financial largesse, raises obvious and somewhat troubling questions about its priorities.

Among the $2.06 billion (with a “b”) in assets reported on the nonprofit hospital’s latest publicly available federal tax forms are $646 million in cash savings, $461 million in publicly traded securities and $206 million in private investments.

Those are staggering figures.

In addition there’s $60 million worth of land, including recent parcel acquisitions in the tens of millions that expanded the hospital’s property holdings to nearly 500 acres. Forty of which are being readied for retail development.

With all that financial heft, why did it take this long for Valley Children’s to begin offering the most advanced and clinically proven treatments for pediatric cancer? Why wait until there’s a $15 million donation?

“They have the money to build a shopping center. They have the money to buy a bunch of land and overpay their executives. How is it they don’t prioritize cancer (treatments) for kids that need them ahead of those things?” Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias asked.

“It’s like a school district saying, ‘Without donations, we won’t be able to serve lunch.’ They clearly have the resources. I don’t get it.”

Neither does Garry Bredefeld, Arias’ council colleague and ideological opposite, who echoed those sentiments.

“Instead of spending $10 million for naming rights at Fresno State or providing outrageous and unjustifiable $27 million compensation packages to the CEO and other executives, the focus should be on spending that money on the medical care and needs for sick and poor children,” Bredefeld said.

Prioritizing stock holdings over patients

Valley Children’s pediatric hematologist oncologist Dr. Faisal Razzaqi told The Bee that the hospital treats between 200 and 300 cancer patients at any one time. Of that number, he said, between 12 and 18 per year require out-of-town referrals for bone marrow transplants and CAR T-cell therapy.

Meaning the lives of dozens of local families have been upended, often for months at a time, because the region’s leading children’s hospital prioritized stock holdings and sky-high executive pay over providing its patients with the most effective tools for battling cancer.

Right up until the point when someone else stepped up to foot the bill.

According to Valley Children’s spokesperson Zara Arboleda, talks with the anonymous donor began about a year ago and “notification” of the $15 million gift arrived around April 15. Two solid weeks after local media seized upon the executive pay story.

Hospital brass, board members and their handsomely paid PR flaks would surely like everyone to believe the timing is no coincidence. That this extremely large, generous donation shows the community believes in the hospital’s mission. Razzaqi even made a statement to that effect.

All it really shows, however, is the continued allegiance of one wealthy, anonymous person. Whose $15 million will fund advanced cancer treatments the hospital could’ve previously afforded, but chose not to.

Valley Children’s is one of our region’s most vital institutions. It does no one living here any good if its reputation takes a beating, donations recede and services suffer as a result. That’s not an outcome any of us should want.

But it doesn’t mean hospital leadership is beyond reproach and above scrutiny. Not if it wishes the decades of near-universal community goodwill and support to continue.

More than a month after John Q. Public learned about Suntrapak’s $5 million annual salaries in 2021 and 2022, as reported on the hospital’s 990 forms, and the $5 million bonus he evidently used to purchase a home in Carmel, we’ve still yet to hear the slightest bit of contrition. Nor see a shred of self-examination.

Rather, the disappointing response from board chair Michael Hanson was that the hospital’s financial decision-making has been exemplary and its critics “misinformed.” Despite ample evidence to the contrary.

Bredefeld, whose son Jordan was born premature and spent two weeks in the Valley Children’s neonatal intensive care unit, called for more accountability and transparency from Suntrapak and Hanson.

“Valley Children’s saved my son’s life — that’s why they will always have a special place for me and my family,” he said. “That’s also why what’s going on is so shocking. There is now a distrust that needs to be re-established.”

Readers know I rarely agree with anything Bredefeld says. But about this he’s absolutely correct.