Norman Finkelstein

IS CATHOLIC HEALTH GENERAL COUNSEL JAMES O’BRIEN A BRAZEN LIAR? There are Causes and there are causes: upper-case “C” such as a genocide and lower-case “c” such as a worker unjustly sacked.    Herewith is a small “c” story.  However, it is illustrative of what has become of our country when a medical doctor is treated as if he were an undocumented worker by a depraved medical system.   The dramatis personae include a lecher, a shyster, and a gaggle of nondescript, gray-on-gray bureaucrats, on the one hand, and a devoted and beloved pediatrician, on the other.  If this story sounds Dickensian, that’s because it is: pristine Evil versus pristine Good.   Rudolph Baldeo came to the U.S. penniless from Guyana. When he took my course in political theory at Hunter College 35 years ago, Rudolph was a shipping clerk by day and a biology major by night. A brilliant student, one semester he took six science courses with ten labs and earned straight A’s.   Rudolph eventually won a full scholarship to Columbia University towards a PhD in biology but decided instead to pursue a medical career.   In sum, Rudolph’s life trajectory traced the proverbial American Dream.   For a quarter century, Dr. Baldeo invested his professional life in Pediatrics ER (Emergency Room) at Good Samaritan Hospital.  He was loved and respected by his colleagues, staff, and patients alike.   Good Sam is owned by Catholic Health Long Island.  Its subcontractor at the hospital is Progressive Emergency Physicians (PEP) headed by Dr. Raio.  Raio’s claim to fame is that he was caught in an act of fellatio with his subordinate (and mistress) in the hospital parking lot.    One day, out of the blue, the Fellatio King decided to terminate Dr. Baldeo.  It was speculated by hospital staff that Catholic Health/PEP was “getting rid of the dinosaurs” (Dr. Baldeo will turn 60 this year) and that Raio wanted to open up a spot for his golfing buddy.   Dr. Baldeo proved faithful in the wholeness of his being to Good Sam. It treated him in return as if disposable trash to be deposited in the gutter.    He was the perfect victim: diminutive stature, soft-spoken, and dark-skinned.  It was just assumed that he would go quietly into the night.    But he wouldn’t.  Dr. Baldeo decided to fight back.   I myself contacted Catholic Health General Counsel James O’Brien.  O’Brien threatened me with a libel suit if I revealed all the sordid and squalid goings-on at the hospital: it was credibly reported that Good Sam overbilled Medicare/Medicaid patients and underreported child sexual abuse allegations.    Then O’Brien did something even more brazen: he purported in a letter to me that “Dr. Baldeo was not employed by the Hospital at any point.”    But Dr. Baldeo received multiple “Catholic Health Reappointment Approval” letters that “approved your application for reappointment as a member of the Medical Staff” in the “Department/Division” of “Pediatric Emergency Medicine” as an “Attending.”    How could Catholic Health at one and the same time “reappoint” Dr. Baldeo as a “member of the Medical staff” at Good Samaritan Hospital as an “Attending”—yet not be Dr. Baldeo’s employer?!   It is a sorry day indeed for our country when a major medical establishment carries on like a Las Vegas fly-by-night craps joint. To be continued   If you would like to express your outrage at this gross injustice, you can contact these individuals at Catholic Health/PEP:   James O’Brien [email protected],[email protected]   Bronwyn Pepple [email protected]   Christopher Raio [email protected]   Cornelia Munteam  [email protected]   Andrew Sama [email protected]   Jennifer Brown [email protected]   Cathy Cahill [email protected]   Justin Lundbye [email protected]

Norman Finkelstein joins Oliver Eagleton for the latest episode of Tribune In Conversation. Finkelstein exposes the lies that have enabled the genocide in Gaza and analyses the British government's shift on Palestine. Watch now: youtu.be/tLFpaP3l7l0