Crunch meeting at Family Nursing
Thursday 5th March 2009, 2:59PM GMT.
A DISPUTE over the suspension of Family Nursing and Home Care director Karen Huchet could come to a head tonight.
Members are meeting at the Town Hall from 6 pm to vote on a no-confidence motion in the chairman Richard Pirouet, and a motion by supporters of Ms Huchet to hold an inquiry into why she has been not allowed to work for seven months.
Ms Huchet attended a meeting with the managing committee yesterday at the Hotel de France but it was adjourned. The vote at the Town Hall will no doubt be influenced by the thinly-veiled threat by Health Minister Jim Perchard yesterday. He warned that Family Nursing and Home Care could lose their £5.9m annual States grant if they do not resolve their internal differences.
Pictured: Suspended director Karen Huchet standing next to Unite union official Nick Corbel at the Hotel de France yesterday. The union will scrutinise this evening’s ballot of members at the Town Hall
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Please let’s concentrate on the service provided by Family Nursing.
Following an operation at The General Hospital where my wife received excellent care she was visited every day over a 3 month period by a member of the organisation who amongst other services administered an intravenous injection.
How much would this have cost if this was not able to have been done in the home?
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Why get the union to scrutinise the ballot ?
If you want a fair ballot,surely the JDA would oblige.
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Senator Perchard’s letter was totally undemocratic, inappropriate, biased and tantamount to bullying the membership of FNHC. The letter was addressed in personal terms ‘Dear Richard’ which totally contradicts Senator Perchard’s claim in the body of the letter of the ‘formal’ intent of the correspondence. Furthermore the timing of Senator Perchard writing and publishing the letter was misplaced, unacceptable and an abuse of his position as both a States Member and Minister for Health as it did not give any opportunity for any written public response before the meeting. Overall it would have been more appropriate and beneficial to the population of Jersey had Senator Perchard utilised these energies to endeavour to resolve what is undoubtedly the major concern for most islanders namely the cessation of the reciprocal health agreement in the UK which is a far more serious issue for the island as a whole and without doubt an issue that is his responsibility to deal with, whereas his involvement in the internal affairs of a Charity and its Members is not within his remit.
The manner in which the meeting at the Town Hall was run last night was outrageous. There were several references by Richard Pirouet, the Chairman of FNHC and Kevin Keen, the Chairman of the meeting with regard to the implications contained in Senator Perchard’s letter with regard to the issues around the assured continuation of FNHC; including a statement that FNHC Committee had copies of the letter available at the meeting for Members to read. The implications of these comments (veiled blackmail/bullying) could hardly fail to influence the voting by members at the meeting. There were also conflicting statements with regard to the Town Hall Ballot, which Richard Dickinson the Vice Chairman of FNHC had been quoted in the JEP the previous day would be the binding votes, whereas at the meeting in the Town Hall, Kevin Keen stated that once the results of the Town Hall ballot were known a decision would be made by the Committee with regard to the Postal Ballot – Third World Country politics would seem to be in order! There was no attempt by the Chairman of the Meeting to control inappropriate statements made by several nurses which amounted to nothing less than a character assassination of Ms Karen Huchet, which statements ought to have been dealt solely within the formal official investigation process. The manner in which the meeting was run and controlled was most unprofessional and whoever was responsible for arranging that two members of a local Security Firm were on duty for the evening should really be questioned by the membership as to the appropriateness of using FNHC funds in this way. Connetable Crowcroft commented that in all his years attending meetings at the Town Hall he had never witnessed the presence of emplyed security at them before. Overall, the evening was a sad reflection on the management style of the Committee of FNHC.
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I too attended the FNHC meeting at the Town Hall and was also appalled at the hearsay accusations levelled at Mrs Huchet by members of staff, which the Chairman at no time attempted to stop. In fact if it wasn’t for a woman at the back of the hall calling for a stop it may well have gone on all night.
On another note, the cost to FNHC must be enormous – Advocates, mailshots(2) to approximately 7,500 members. A ‘lot of tins’ will have to be ‘rattled’ to make up the monies spent by this Charity.
Mrs Huchet’s behaviour was exemplary. She did not attempt to trade insults, which is to her credit, and stayed with the facts. Mrs Huchet has given twenty-four years of service to FNHC and deserved better from her Committee.
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