Open Letter To Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Investigate Suspected Fraud In Lakewood Municipality

Cliff by Pier W Restaurant - Lakewood Ohio

Thanks for your attention to our grievance about Lakewood’s $1.8 Million ordinances obligating us to the “cliff erosion protection” project. As you know, even the ODNR doesn’t recommend this at this time. Coastal seawalls and revetments etc, harm shores, lake water and won’t assure the prevention of cliff collapse. With these type of ordinances, President Trump’s $0 funding for Great Lake Protection, and Trump's denial of climate change, the multibillion dollar industry our lakes provide is greatly threatened.

As a follow-up to that grievance, new information from the Ohio Court of Appeals raises suspicion that there is a pattern of fraudulent activity amongst Lakewood's officials. For example: Lakewood Hospital:  Lakewood’s high percentage of Medicaid patients made our hospital less profitable than it could be. City officials claimed no one wanted to take over its management, so the mayor approved the closing of the hospital. The 1,000 jobs lost when the hospital closed decimated hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. Many employees had to move for no other health care provider is here to hire them.

False advertising made the absurd claim that an emergency room is equivalent to a hospital and that closing the hospital was no great loss. Hearings in city hall begging to save our hospital fell on deaf ears, so we demanded a vote to keep our hospital. When casting ballots, many voters interpreted that a “YES” vote meant that the hospital would stay open. So "YES" won - and the hospital CLOSED! So now, patients go to Avon etc.                   

Because of this, our community is suing the municipality, which is costly to all. Recently, the Court of Appeals ordered our officials to show documents that Metro Hospital DID want to take over our hospital, something city council concealed in order to justify closing our hospital. http://lakewoodobserver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=23901

A more serious problem concerns health. As I am a board-certified neuro-radiologist I share this: Patients who suspect that they are having a stroke must seek emergency treatment, for not doing so can be devastating and even deadly.  http://www.mdedge.com/clinicalneurologynews/article/116649/stroke/new-trials-address-unresolved-issues-endovascular

During a stroke, for each 15 minutes of no treatment the brain loses about 12% of its brain cells - so TIME IS BRAIN. http://www.life-recovery.com/pdf/assoc/263.pdf   and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjkgm6x3LlY

Lakewood hospital was able to treat acute strokes with neuro-interventional arterial therapies using the $3 Million angio equipment we purchased with our taxes. Our ER can’t perform these procedures, so patients are shipped by ambulance to neighboring hospitals for treatment. Ambulances take 15- 20 minutes to go to Fairview and 25-30 minutes to the Clinic for this therapy. Patients with mental changes who come to Lakewood’s ER, if diagnosed with a stroke, will take about one hour by the time they are treated in a hospital. To shorten the diagnostic time, our ER has a van that provides CT scans for these patients. This CT scanner however takes limited images, can’t rule-out mini ischemic strokes and the van is not equipped to give therapy. If the van is busy or too far away, it won’t help. Our ER can treat strokes with (TPA) intravenous therapy but TPA only saves 12% of brain tissue, and bleeding complications can occur. The neuro interventional arterial therapy which is only done in a hospital has 80% success for salvaging brain tissue.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1415061#t=article

So, we ask: Since closing our hospital cost Lakewood hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues and is harming us in so many ways, why did our city officials close it? If the ODNR didn’t recommend the $1,8 Million cliff erosion project as all experts told us this can’t assure the cliff won’t fall, and this will erode shores, damage lake water, etc. -  we wonder -  why did our officials push for these projects? Could it be, because they and the involved parties had pecuniary reasons at the expense of its taxpayers? 

Our concern is that if we do not investigate this now, our officials can make this into a pattern. We must stop this before it’s too late. On behalf of Lakewood citizens, we request your office brings these concerns to the attention of the FBI.                                                                                                              

Dr. Kaplan is a Lakewood condo owner, Board Certified Neuroradiologist with a Fellowship from Johns Hopkins Hospital,  Assistant prof. Columbia University, NYC, U of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Retired. Practiced at Lakewood Hospital and University Hospitals. Who's Who in American Medicine. Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Women. President of lifewatchgroup.org, an international think tank. www.lifewachgroup.org