Jeff Sanders, President of Maine Medical Center. Previously Mr. Sanders Worked in Utah; a Base for Regressive Policies Toward Women. Has He Instituted This Regressive Attitude Toward Women at Maine Medical Center?
Signs on the Eastern Promenade in Support of a Nurses Union: Nurse Power Equals Patient Safety.
Friends of Maine Med Nurses has issued a statement in support of the over 1,000 nurses effort to unionize to improve their working conditions and the care they give to patients at Maine Medical Center, Portland.
An online letter from the group says that the Maine Med nurses are overworked and underpaid and don’t get the respect they deserve. These conditions existed before the COVID-19 pandemic started over a year ago now the on-line letter stated.
Overlooked in the controversy surrounding this unionization effort is the professional history of Jeff Sanders, CEO of Maine Medical Center. Prior to his employment here in Portland, he was employed for years in Utah. He worked at two different healthcare facilities; one in Murray and one in Ogden. Ogden is a short ride north of Salt Lake City, the state’s capitol and home to the Mormon Church, officially known as the Latter Day Saints. Sanders’ on-line bio does not indicate how long he worked in Utah, if that is his home or any other pertinent details.
Utah is known for its spectacular mountains, fresh powder skiing, the magnificant Morman Tabernacle Choir and clean living among other assets worth promoting.
But lesser known and not promoted in its travel brochures or its on-line promotions is Utah’s regressive attitude toward women. Only if you have lived in Salt Lake City or the state, would you know of its demeaning attitude toward women. Mhn.com once lived and worked in SLC – among many members of the Latter Day Saints church. Skiing in fresh powder at nearby Alta was at the top of this brief agenda in Utah.
The provincial and prevailing attitude toward women in SLC was repressive. Women were to stay home, produce babies; stay home to raise them; and stay home to echo the opinions of their husbands – whatever they were. If women did not fit this mold, they were considered “misfits” and treated as such. Single women without children were not held in high regard. We were treated like pawns in a chess game. Following more than a year of this culture, mhn.com could not wait to flee home to the northeastern United States.
Are these repressive values toward women the ones that Mr. Sanders has brought to his leadership role at Maine Medical Center Mhn.com recently queried John Porter, Communications Director, for Maine Health, parent company of Maine Medical Center? No response was received.
Unionize! Don’t be a pawn in MMC’s chess game!
(Mhn.com used to be on Maine Medical Center’s press release list. Mhn.com covered several Planning Board meetings at city hall because of the press releases issued by Caroline Cornish, of the press department at MMC. Suddenly, this blogger was removed from the Maine Health and Maine Medical Center press release lists with no explanation. That despite multiple requests for an explanation for this arbitrary and capricious decision that dominates MMC/Maine Health policies. )