The past few days have been challenging for all of us. Like many of you, the board of directors is eager for change. We are committed to helping Fenway Health move forward. And to that end, we offer the following pledge:
To our valued patients –
We will continue to provide the same high quality, compassionate care that has made Fenway a local, national, and global leader. At the provider-patient level, nothing has changed about our commitment to our patients. We are committed, alongside the management team, to working together and ensure effective day to day operations. Your care at Fenway remains our priority.
To the dedicated staff of Fenway Health —
Thank you for your passion and your commitment. More than ever, we appreciate your dedication, every day, to our mission. This last week has made it even more clear to us: You deserve an exemplary workplace environment at Fenway Health and The Fenway Institute. We want our employees to always feel valued and heard. To help achieve that, we will be holding staff listening sessions to understand your concerns and your challenges. We need to hear your perspectives and pledge to use them to inform our thinking going forward.
To our family of supporters —
We remain deeply thankful for your support, and we understand how recent events may challenge your commitment to Fenway. We want to hear your concerns and address them as best we can, and we are making ourselves available for those conversations. This week’s changes in organization and board leadership are an acknowledgment that we have heard you, and we are moving forward in a way that shows the value we place on your input, involvement and dedication to us. We are grateful for the resources you have committed to Fenway Health. And we pledge to utilize them wisely.
We cannot change the circumstances that have brought us to this point. However, there is tremendous learning as a result of being where we are. And action is being taken.
- We have appointed as Interim CEO, Director of Behavioral Health, Jane Powers, MSW, LICSW.
- We have elected Liz Page as Chair of the Board. Liz is our first woman chair since 2008.
- We will redouble our efforts to make the board more diverse and more inclusive.
- We are initiating a board member listening tour in which we will sit down with any and all employees who are willing to share with us the challenges and rewards of their work at Fenway.
- We will also be reviewing and implementing numerous additional measures, in both the near and long-term.
What Fenway stands for in our community, the important services that Fenway provides, and how Fenway operates – particularly with regards to patient care and research – remain vibrant and essential.
Fenway Health is more than a single person or an individual decision. We are a community health center. And community health has, and always will be, our focus.
And to that community, we stay deeply committed to creating and maintaining a strong and supportive organization. Everyone associated with the organization should be very proud of the care, education, research, and advocacy that our dedicated teams continue to deliver every single day. Those teams, the patients they serve, and the people who support their work, deserve the very best from us.
We hope you see and understand the sincerity and thought we are dedicating to these matters. We hope you give us a chance to create — with everyone’s participation — a Fenway Health that emerges from this situation better than before. We thank you for your passion, your dedication, and your inspiration.
Please share your thoughts and ideas about how Fenway Health can work to become a better, stronger and more transparent organization moving foward. You can contact us at [email protected].
Sincerely,
John Basile
Joseph Castellana
Kyle Faget
Stephen Harney
Charles Hindmarsh
Jennifer Jones
John Koss
Michael Kramer
Jonathan Matsui
Raúl Medina
Kendra Moore
Liz Page
Lisa Paine
Benjamin Perkins
Michael Reney
Louise Rice
Jose Leopoldo Romero, Jr.
Douglas Spencer
Gail Tsimprea
John Wolfarth
Joblin Younger