North Shore Health-y? The remodeled North Shore Health Board has already met three times this year. I attended the 23rd January meeting. It was alternately alive and boring. The boring part was a long, remote presentation on Governance, the law surrounding being a Board member. I infer it was mainly for the benefit of the two new members, Milan Schmidt and Sam Usem. If I recall rightly, a similar live presentation had been done two years before. The three continuing members—Wiitala, Frykman, and Patty Winchell-Dahl divided up the Board’s offices among themselves. My hopes that Schmidt might serve as a mediating chair were dashed. The less boring part was Mike Debevec’s public comment. It reminded Board and Administration that the issues that led to the long time Board Chair being defeated--and two new members—have not faded. Debevec is a retired doctor who worked here from 1980 to 1993 and later did sports medicine and rural emergency health work for Essentia. He had three main concerns: Board and Administration do not listen to the local doctors or employees; Dr. Dahlman’s summary dismissal and obvious tin ear of the Board toward the complaints that arose. Employee turnover, including especially the recent. complete replacement of Laboratory staff. On the first point, after Governance, the end of the Board meeting saw a PowerPoint presentation of the Employee Engagement Survey done by the Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative. A copy is on the way says the Administrator. As to all the issues, we await the report of two Georgia think tank women who conducted a survey of community members about a variety of Cook County health care issues. The two meetings held last summer were lively and direct. The complaints previously made about difficulties between North Shore Health and Sawtooth Mountain Clinic were aired. The report is due about now; I am hopeful that what I heard told to the researcher makes a persuasive report. More to come after we see the Wisconsin and Geogia reports. And more to come as we begin to see the impact of the new members, Schmidt and Usem. Stay tuned. Mea Culpa: Last week you likely wondered about our column. I sent the wrong one in, and our editor relied on my submission. Steve Aldrich is a retired Hennepin County lawyer, mediator, and Judge, serving from 1997-2010. He and his wife moved here in 2016. He likes to remember that he was an “a,v” Minnesota Super Lawyer before being elected to the bench. Steve really enjoys doing weddings. He writes this column to learn about his new home area--and to indulge our curiosities. Copyright Stephen C. Aldrich and News-Herald, 2025.
