Joel Freedman Agrees Hahnemann Hospital Should Open for COVID-19 Victims

Joel Freedman Agrees Hahnemann Hospital Should Open for COVID-19 Victims

That’s right. Joel Freedman, believes that Hahnemann Hospital should be leveraged as soon as possible to serve Philadelphia and its residents during this terrible global COVID-19 crisis. COVID-19 will not wait for negotiations and rhetoric. It spreads like wildfire and requires every tool at the disposal of every level of government to prevail against this invisible invader. Mic drop.

OK, wait a minute…who the heck am I to make this assessment? I am Joel Freedman. I live in California and am being mistaken as the Joel Freedman many of you have grown to despise. So I share the same name as the Pariah of Philadelphia who is the CEO of a web of companies and LLCs that I understand to comprise the current ownership of Hahnemann Hospital, which has been closed since July 2019. As of just a few short days, ago, this Joel Freedman had never heard of this other Joel Freedman or of Hahnemann Hospital. However, due to a vicious social media campaign that has been unleashed upon Joel Freedman, at least some percentage of the wrath intended for this other Joel Freedman has been targeted directly at this innocent Joel Freedman and his family. The majority of the week has been a frustrating effort to secure my social media accounts and ensure that authorities in both Philadelphia and my home city are looking after our security.  After feeling like the most misunderstood man on the planet, I have come to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that I was brought into awareness of the unfortunate situation for a reason…and perhaps that is to help provide a solution to this stalemate between Joel Freedman and the great city of Philadephia. As a native New Yorker of course I’ve been to the City of Brotherly Love many times. I almost moved there for my MBA education years ago, and recently was very close to an opportunity to work in the state.

I have held Philadelphia in fond regard since my first visit there when I was in third grade living in New York.

So a few things about me: (1) I am not a lawyer; (2) while I share the same name, I have no known relation to or relationship with this other Joel Freedman; (3) I am a businessman with over 30 years of experience in accounting, finance, and general management with experience at some of the best companies on the planet, and have consulted on or directly managed countless deals in the past; (4) yes, you would recognize all of the companies I’ve worked for and if you continue to keep my LinkedIn profile trending you can see for yourself. My last week consisted of a significant business deal being lost, being potentially exposed to COVID-19, and establishing a plan for pivoting my company to move into serving the medical needs of COVID-19 and instead getting furloughed, and then being confused with this other Joel Freedman. Definitely, among the worst weeks ever. Since that time, I am at least happy to report that my company is going down the road of several product lines that will serve the medical needs of COVID-19, and I have been called upon to assist with a partner who is converting NICU ventilators into ones which may be used for adults during this crisis.

These are not typical times. We are facing a global pandemic of a force we have not seen in modern days, and while I believe that we will eventually conquer this COVID-19 beast, we will lose humans who should have never been lost. We all need to do everything we can as quickly as possible to ensure that we minimize the damage on our society. The simple initial solution is to stay home if you are not working in an essential service. The second is to get our health care workers proper PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). The third is that we see where the hockey puck is going and open space, secure equipment, recruit medics to allow for the brutal upcoming weeks in America. We can do this by making sure we have the appropriate facilities to care for those who cannot fight this virus on their own. The President of the United States is discussing every add to our hospital capacity in the country that is on the scale of what Hahnemann can provide, and the The Army Corps of Engineers is proving capable of getting hospitals up and running in a matter of days from virtually nothing. In the town I work in, a community hospital was opened by order of the state governor, and will soon be operational to handle overflow cases. The National Guard has established temporary hospitals in virtually no time in the state as well. Hahnemann Hospital is worthy of such an effort.

Under normal circumstances, it would be reasonable for someone who owns an asset to be able to request compensation for the use of the asset and to hold it from use as part of a negotiation strategy to ensure that both sides get a fair side of the deal. In a national emergency, a different approach is called for. Joel Freedman should toss the keys of the hospital to the city (or state or Federal government) as the case may be, and either leverage this as an opportunity to improve the brand of his greater network of hospitals, to receive the benefit of a charitable contribution, or to in good faith offer the asset for a payment to be negotiated later when the emergency is over. Will Joel Freedman or his company make a lot of money on this? No. Should there be fair compensation at some point? Not unreasonable.

Now while $910,000 per month sounds like a lot of money for a hospital, this represents less than 58 cents per capita in the city (assuming a population of 1.58 million per Google search). Even if that were the final price tag for the facility, which I don’t think it should be, I would like to see the city of Philadelphia be able to scrounge up 58 cents per person out of the budget per month to be able to ensure that there is increased capacity in the city to take care of COVID-19 patients. This total of $3.45 per capita for a six-month period of time feels like it should be able to be self-funded. A slight adjustment of expenditures, a new/temporary tax, a bond, donations from the top 1% and top businesses in Philadelphia, a GoFundMe campaign by the great citizens of Philly…any of these could be used to help fund this need within the city. There are countless options but the commodity that is not up for negotiation is time. There are so many avenues for assistance beyond the city boundaries,  including the 2 trillion dollar national relief package, assistance from FEMA or the Defense Protection Act are among the roads toward a finish line. It is time to get this hospital up and running , and agree to have a method for determining appropriate compensation that is fair to the city and to the owners by an arbitrator or appropriate third party when we are on the other side of this battle.

As to Joel Freedman, it is very hard to defend his actions to date. As a result of this stalemate, while I have also gotten some respectful pleadings and thoughtful requests, I have more notably been personally wished a “slow and painful death” to me, my wife and my family. I have been cursed at repeatedly and hoped to “curl up into a ball and die in [your] empty hospital”. This all after a week when I was furloughed from my job after offering up multiple solutions to pivot to manufacturer and distribute PPE (masks), and to use our manufacturing facilities to build ventilators for the effort, and to consider fast tracking a dispensary which could start with making sanitizer. I worked tirelessly to come up with potential partners for this effort. I learned today that my company is going to move in this direction, and I will be specifically assisting a partner that is converting ventilators that are being used for NICUs to ones that can be used for adults.

That being said, as a businessperson of many years, I also believe that this is not a decision that can be made by Joel Freedman in isolation. Like many businesses, investment vehicles or companies, even while in a prominent position, the CEO will normally have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that the asset he or she is responsible for is managed to ensure the interest of all its shareholders. I would imagine if Mr. Freedman did not have the full support of his board or investors, that to simply hand over the keys for free would be a violation of his fiduciary responsibility and he could be sued or potentially worse. So, while I don’t think I would have handled this situation in a million years the way that this other Joel Freedman did, if I am only getting a small percentage of the wrath for this situation, I can only imagine how this is impacting him. While arguments and strong convictions are always appropriate, I certainly would not condone the physical damage, the online threats, and certainly any violence that would be targeted on anyone. I will go further and say that I strongly urge these tactics not be used on anyone.

So, Joel Freedman, Paladin Health, City of Philadelphia, State of Pennsylvania, FEMA, Army Corps of Engineers, DPA Leadership, Mike Navarro, Vice President Pence, President Trump. Let’s get ‘er done. Open the hospital, get it ready to save lives…and then consider some fair compensation to the owner(s) of the asset. When this is all over, this hospital that has stood for nearly 200 years and served thousands of patients and saved countless lives should be renovated and made available to serve the needs of the city of Philadelphia.

“We constantly change the world, even by our inaction. Therefore, let us change it responsibly.” – Benjamin Franklin.

Sincerely, Joel Freedman (one of the many who don’t own Hahnemann Hospital)