During my Monday morning perusal of the Daily Iowan to count how many of my friends got to personally meet some of Iowa City’s finest over the weekend, I found this article which addresses the very reasons I picked up the phone on Day One of this blog and say “Yo Pops, I’m hoppin’ mad ’bout some shit goin’ down.”  If you really don’t want to read the piece, or the Press-Citizen’s version of events here, essentially the hospital will begin asking patients’ permission to put their contact info in a database and solicit them for money.

I’m not particularly fond of the DI’s reporting on it, as it seems the side in favor of this policy basically wrote the article.  This is problem numero uno I have with the profession I’ve chosen to go into.  While PR is spun to us in class as unicorn and rainbows, press releases and event planning, it’s often hard to forget the giant elephant in the corner with his Spin Doctor shirt on.  No matter how much the spokespeople try to gloss this over as “low pressure…ethical…everyone else does it” (<–which um, HELLO, I was taught in like second grade that should never be an excuse for something) the fact is that it’s over the line.

 While I’m extremely glad they are not asking Medicaid and Iowa Care patients to participate, this is such a skeezy, low brow move for such an “esteemed” high-class place that we’re supposed to be running.  People are at the hospital because they are sick, because there is something wrong, in which medical bills will need to be paid.  Let’s try to now catch them in a very vulnerable, anxious state, in which they are already filling out dozens of forms.  Do they not think patients realize the hospital exists?  That they’re just sitting around with their checkbooks going ‘Gee, I sure want to give back in some way, but I just don’t know if UIHC will want this money.’  I understand that signing the form will only put them in a database, that no one is holding a gun to their head and demanding five bucks, but at the end of the day it’s solicitation, and outright asking people for money sucks.

As for the argument that this would somehow affect patient care, that those who consent would be treated better than those who don’t, I don’t think that’s an issue at all.  That thought never crossed my mind when I found out about this a few weeks ago– I have faith in my co-workers, who are as disgusted by this as I am, that nothing like that would even be considered.  While many days I wonder how we can have so many CEOs making bank while 200 fellow employees were laid off, at the end of the day they’re still human CEOs making bank…

The UI Foundation does some great work.  Not only do I know many students who work for them, but many of the administrative staff of the foundation have come to speak with my PR workshop class.  These people are good at what they do, they’ve taught us some great things about fundraising, it doesn’t even sound like a half bad place to work.  I can see how some might try to pose a legitimate argument that they’re just trying to do their jobs, that these people, after the bills are paid, may want to be informed of programs they otherwise wouldn’t know anything about.  None of this relevant as far as I am concerned however, this entire idea is tacky and completely out of line. 

 Iowa has one of the smallest percentages of alumni who give back in the Big Ten– let’s work on increasing that before we cop out and start taking advantage of many of the patients who have to go to our hospital, not who choose to.  Hospital employees are not having this either– many of the reception staff who will have to be trained how to administer these forms have flat-out said they will not go.  I don’t see how, from a relationship-building standpoint, this idea could ever work out in the long run.  People will be so turned off by this that I can only see negative things coming from it. 

In the Press-Citizen article, someone from the foundation is quoted as saying she’s surprised people are even questioning this program after the Pappajohn’s announced their $26 million gift.  Are you high?!  Does this not seem like the most contrived announcement, hiding behind that gift, to make this program seem like no big deal??  She makes it sound like the patients should be thanking them when she says they’re simply “offering the opportunity to grateful patients who want to help make a positive impact on the lives of others.”  That is the dark side of PR.