Time to retreat from retreats

We trust members of the Ector County Hospital District Board of Directors and key Medical Center Hospital officials are thoroughly refreshed and much smarter after the annual retreat in a place far from the rigors of Odessa.

OK, we admit that sentiment was served with a heaping side order of sarcasm.

Despite all the feel-good language about self-evaluation and getting a look at the region that the hospital serves, it is difficult to understand why MCH bigwigs have to travel all the way to Marfa (last year it was Lajitas) to get all the planning done for another year.

Surely another closer location could have been found to get all the seclusion necessary for these intense sessions. One of the justifications was that the Big Bend region offers limited cell phone access so there would be fewer distractions. Well, there's another way to address that problem - just stay nearby and turn off the phones so messages could go to voice mail and be checked every couple of hours during breaks.

Now the amount of money involved isn't that big when compared to the annual budget of Medical Center. The projected cost of the retreat than ran from Thursday to Saturday was $12,654 for rooms, meals and mileage. Last year's Lajitas retreat cost $16,000. The 2006 retreat cost $10,387.

But it is still taxpayer money. After a while, it all adds up. Eventually, using a comparison that fits the health care theme, putting the retreats on a diet could save as much as you get billed for a box of tissues or a couple of aspirin during a hospital stay.

Yeah, we had just a little leftover sarcasm and didn't want it to go to waste.

On a more serious note, however, we have to address the issue of perception.

For people who have a bit of mistrust for government - and who doesn't have a bit of that - it might appear that these elected officials and the accompanying bureaucrats are fleeing their jurisdiction to do the public's business far from otherwise intense public scrutiny.

It might take a conspiracy theorist to make that leap in logic, but there's a lot of that going around these days. It might just look better if the board and administrators scaled back their retreats and saved a few bucks in the process.

It's also understandable that these board members serve without pay and that it's a nice perk of a mainly thankless job to get to go on a nice working trip once a year. But cushy retreats are somewhat out of style these days when the common folk are swooning at the numbers on the gasoline pump. Other governmental agencies around town manage to get their yearly planning done without road trips.

Oh well, that's just a few things the hospital folks can kick around before next year rolls around.