Editors note: A special board meeting has been scheduled Monday, June 5 at 7:00am to address the employee letters at Sierra View, 465 West Putnam Avenue, Porterville, CA – Board Room
Two Sierra View employees who work in the Cardiac Catheterization (Cath) Lab submitted anonymous letters claiming a hostile work place. The employees requested that the letters be read during public comment at the May 23 board meeting.
Their complaints centered around Dr. Bindsagar Reddy, who is a lead cardiologist at the hospital and the Chairperson of the Sierra View Board of Directors.
“He [Reddy] said our director would not be working here anymore and that anyone else that he sees as not needed or not good at what they do will also be going away,” one letter read. “I don’t have to say what impact this has had on our department. Now we cannot speak up, even for patient safety, out of fear we will also be on this list of staff to be removed.”
The second letter read during the meeting concurred, claiming “this creates a horrible place to work and we are now all afraid to say anything or work with him because if we do something he does not like, he will get rid of us too.”
According to the hospital’s website, “Sierra View Medical Center opened Porterville’s only Cardiac Catheterization (Cath) Lab in 2017. Sierra View’s clinical staff and support teams provide the Cardiac Cath Lab with diagnostic, preventative, and interventional services close to home. 90% of procedures are same-day, with many cardiac patients going home only hours after receiving life-saving care.”
Reddy performs the majority of procedures at the Cath Lab.
Reddy said the Cath Lab has 4 or 5 employees while another source who works at the hospital said there are between 10 to 20 employees who work in the lab.
The complaints were a “nothingburger,” Reddy told the Valley Voice. He added that the letters should not be published in a newspaper.
“We shouldn’t make a mountain out of a mole hill,” he said. He also questioned the legality of reading anonymous letters aloud during a board meeting.
At the same time, Reddy took full responsibility for the workplace environment. He said while answering staff’s questions there must have been a misunderstanding.
“I should have not have let that happen. I want to feel comfortable while working. And I feel badly the staff feels like that.”
“Employees are not part of the public”
According to Whitney Watts, Administrative Assistant Clerk to the Board of Directors, the hospital has an anonymous hotline, email, and drop box for employees to communicate with management. Because the letters were received through this hotline it was confirmed that the complaints originated from Sierra View employees and not outside agitators.
The letters were read during the meeting by the Secretary of the Board of Directors, Areli Martinez.
Reddy said that the letters should not have been read out loud during the public comment.
“Employees are not part of the public,” he said. “There is no precedence of a hospital employee complaining publicly.”
“We are looking into it legally,” he said.
Director Liberty Lomeli, representing District 4, has called a special meeting on Monday evening, June 6, to specifically address letters.
Reddy felt a special meeting was appropriate so the letters don’t interfere with business that needs to be conducted in the regular board meeting later in June.
Reddy and Lomeli were both elected to the Sierra View Board of Directors in fall of 2020.
The result of rumors
Reddy confirmed that the director of the Cath Lab, Shay Moore, had been transferred to another department and that her removal might have been the start of rumors among the staff there would be layoffs.
Reddy said that he has nothing to do with the hiring or firing of staff and that he would never discuss any issues about hospital management with staff.
In fact during the 2020 election he was critical of Zone 2 Director Dr. Gaurang Pandya who he claimed “micro manages and inappropriately interferes with the medical staff.”
But the letter states, “While working Dr. Reddy came into the cath lab and disclosed to staff that he had created a committee that was going to be responsible for big changes.”
“He says that there are a lot of changes that are going to occur and that leadership will be changed and some removed and that there is a lot of staff too. He says he has the ability to make that happen,” it continues. “What recourse do staff have when the chairmen of the board acts like this?”
Reddy said that the hospital hired a consulting group and formed and oversight committee to reorganize the staff to make the hospital more efficient and cut costs. Two Directors, Hans Kashyap and Lomeli, are among the oversight committee members.
The reorganizing is focused primarily on those in management positions said Reddy.
“I was always against across the board cuts.” But Reddy said the hospital was top heavy with directors and middle management. He added that Kaweah Health just went through the same reorganization.
“We need more people working here not fewer,” said Reddy.
Let’s see, the chairman of the board who’s named in the complaint, is calling this a “nothing burger”? I think I’d take the word of the employees who work in his area over his “conflict of interest” side any day. And since when are employees not part of the community?
Dr. Reddy is hands down an amazing doctor & has great bedside manners. Can he be strict sometimes, yes! Is his focus always on patient safety, yes! I have worked with him for 5 years & understand where he is coming from. Sometimes we voice our opinions out loud & maybe that is where he struggles ! But he is by far the best cardiologist in town.
This is definitely a hostile work place. Patient safety is not important. We say nothing because we need our job. When I had loved ones in SVMC I stayed to protect them. Yes…I work there
Who makes it hostile? Dr. Reddy or the staff?
I know it’s a combination of both Dr. Reddy’s attitude and the incompetence of staff.
Dr. Reddy is an amazing doctor, too many people out to get him. He might not be the nicest to his colleagues but he is definitely the best cardiologist in town.
I’ve wrote like 2 positive comments about Dr. Reddy and none have been posted on here. I wonder why?
I have worked with Dr. Reddy in the hospital for nearly six years and I can tell you with 100% confidence that these allegations are pure lies and propaganda.
I know the people who made these false accusations against Dr. Reddy and I can say with certainty that they are allies of Dr. Pandya. This is an inside job, false flag operation that was orchestrated by none other than Gaurang and his wife, Ela “Lady Macbeth” Pandya as payback for him holding Gaurang responsible for his vicious attack on our beloved leader Donna Hefner last year. Dr. Reddy was the ONLY person courageous enough to stand up to Gaurang and his decades-long campaign of bullying and intimidation (particularly of our female employees), and this is how Guarang is exacting his revenge.
I am truly sickened by the Pandyas, their vindictive nature, and their refusal to take responsibility for all the evil they have unleashed in this world. Guarang and Ela, please stop. For the love of all that is good in this world, just stop.
Moderators’ note: This post was not made by Ela Pandya, who has called and confirmed this with the Valley Voice. The Voice has been able to confirm this as well. This comment is being left up to ensure that any readers who saw the initial comment(s) and any commenters who replied, are able to see this disclaimer.
Hello Mark from Lindsay. I want to just clear my family’s name in all this. The Pandyas have been nothing but a positive force in city of Porterville for last 30 years. We even donated a bench to Veterans park for people and also Hispanics to enjoy. Have you seen your friend Dr. Reddy do that? No.We have helped countless people financially. Many of them were disabled, poor, Hispanic, etc. Have you helped them? Has Dr. Reddy? No.We are active in the Zonta club. Is Reddy? No.We appear frequently in the Porterville Recorder. Our daughter Tejal is a top-tier surgeon. Are any of Reddy’s daughters even comparable? No.Please do not drag us into this. These employees should be heard and Reddy should finally be exposed.This is a real lesson for the community: be careful who we vote for to run the hospital.All the best, Mark.👍
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Hi, all, commenting here from the Valley Voice staff.
We’ve confirmed that this was not posted by Ela Pandya by her statements to us and after research on our end. The comment is being left up, but being modified to add a disclaimer above it and to fix the commenter name, in order to provide a clarification to those who had read and/or replied to them.
We purposefully allow for anonymous/pseudonymous comments as we believe that people can speak their minds more freely without being tied to their real name. Unfortunately, sometimes this results in people attempting to wear others’ names as a mask, and we’re correcting that here.
Sounds like Dr. Reddy has paid a lot of people (or maybe it is he) to post very positive comments about him. Next time your nephew sticks his finger in someone’s face, he better think twice before it gets stuck up his (place where the sun don’t shine).
WOW a bench for people AND ALSO Hispanics – and here I was thinking Hispanics WERE people…
I thought the same thing. Why does she keep mentioning Hispanics as other than people and unfortunate?
Moderators’ note: This post was not made by Ela Pandya, who has called and confirmed this with the Valley Voice. The Voice has been able to confirm this as well. This comment is being left up to ensure that any readers who saw the initial comment(s) and any commenters who replied, are able to see this disclaimer.
Dear Jolie,Thanks for correcting me. Our intention is just to serve the community. I do that by looking at who needs help the most. If you look at educational outcomes, for example, Hispanics are doing much worse than for example Indians.Just look at my daughter Tejal — she did very well in school. But her Hispanic friends did not. Heck, even Reddy’s daughters did pretty well in school.That’s why our family has been helping Hispanic students by mentoring, providing benches, etc …Please join us in improving our community!Hi, all, commenting here from the Valley Voice staff.
We’ve confirmed that this was not posted by Ela Pandya by her statements to us and after research on our end. The comment is being left up, but being modified to add a disclaimer above it and to fix the commenter name, in order to provide a clarification to those who had read and/or replied to them.
We purposefully allow for anonymous/pseudonymous comments as we believe that people can speak their minds more freely without being tied to their real name. Unfortunately, sometimes this results in people attempting to wear others’ names as a mask, and we’re correcting that here.
Conflict of interest: a situation in which a person is in a position to derive personal benefit from actions or decisions made in their official capacity.
Dr. Reddy is an excellent doctor and a reasonable person but should not be on the board. Sierra View is just another example of what happens when a community is not involved in overseeing public institutions. We as a community have fault in this because we are not involved enough to make sure the hospital as an organization is being run in the best interest of the people it serves. Hostile environments, he say/she say, fear of losing your job, all these things end up affecting the reason why we are in a hospital to begin with, the patients. I hoped for a better response from Dr. Reddy and I hope this issue is resolved and we can get back to helping those that depend on us.