Tri-City Board Member Blasts Hospital Trustees : Medicine: Panel blamed for exodus of staff and criticized for choice of new leader at Oceanside facility.

A Tri-City Medical Center board member criticized fellow trustees Thursday, calling them “dinosaurs who have outlived their usefulness” and who have caused an exodus of top administrators from the Oceanside hospital.

Margret Merlock, an eight-year Tri-City board member, said she usually does not speak out against the board majority with whom she often disagrees, “but I feel that they have been negligent and need to wake up and see what is happening to their hospital. A lot of hospitals have been closed because of considerably less difficulties than we face at Tri-City.”

She blamed fellow board members for the resignation of five top hospital administrators in the past year and labeled as “cronyism” the hiring of a former hospital controller as chief executive officer, replacing the popular but controversial Richard Hachten, who resigned last month.

Board President Gene Geil defended the selection of Leon Hooper, 55, as a coup for Tri-City administrators because the man “stood head and shoulders above” two other individuals who applied for the job, and because he was the only one available to assume the duties before Hachten leaves Tri-City Jan. 18.

Hooper, who had served as the Oceanside hospital’s controller from 1965 to 1970, retired in August, 1989, as regional vice president for HEALTHTRUST Inc., a firm operating 104 medical centers throughout the United States.

“He came to me recently and asked if there was an opening at Tri-City,” Geil said. “He tried retirement, and he hated it. He has always had a warm spot in his heart for this area.”

Geil told Merlock and other critics of the 3-2 board decision to hire Hooper that the new administrator was “a fine choice, and I’ve been told that Scripps (hospitals, Tri-City’s competitors in the North County) had him at the top of their list.”

But, after the bad publicity that followed the board’s split decision to hire Hooper, Geil said: “He hasn’t signed his contract yet, and, after all that’s been in the newspapers, I wouldn’t blame him if he doesn’t sign it.”

Hooper has been offered the $145,000-a-year job for one year, Geil said. An option in the contract allows either Hooper or the hospital board to cancel the contract on 90 days notice.

Merlock, however, questioned Hooper’s educational credentials, pointing out that the administrator has a bachelor’s degree in education and only a certificate in hospital administration, “which is something you can get after a six-week course.”

She said that Hooper was hired during an executive session of the board Tuesday night “after about half an hour’s discussion and without checking his credentials. I wouldn’t hire a gardener without checking his credentials.”

“This man (Hooper) has nothing to lose. He has a guaranteed one-year contract,” Merlock said. She favored hiring a search firm that would bring in a temporary management team to run the hospital until the new executive was chosen.

If a management team were brought in, she said, “they would do a good job, or they would never get another referral.”