©2013 The Wichita Eagle andBeacon Publishing Co., 825 E.Douglas, Wichita, KS 67202. S

UN

DA

Y

SUNDAY, JULY 14, 2013 n STATE EDITION

SundayKansas com

In 2009, Gary Stone weighed

402 pounds and felt like he was

“wearing out.” He turned to

Via Christi Weight Management,

the region’s most experienced

surgical weight loss program.

Since then, he’s lost 191 pounds.

His diabetes and sleep apnea have

resolved. And he’s back in the

driver’s seat of his rat rod —

and his life.

If you’re driven to lose weight,Via Christi Weight

Management today.

316.689.6082

viachristi.org/weightloss

Driven poundslighter

Stone weighed

nd felt like he was

He turned to

eight Management,

most experienced

ight loss program.

he’s lost 191 pounds.

tes and sleep apnea have

And he’s back in the

seat of his rat rod —

life.

If you’re driven tocall Via C

Mana

viachristi

en 191now he’s

American Indian Festivalcontinues at Century II

Wichita Grand Operaunveils new seasonARTS & LEISURE, 1C

Arts & Leisure 1C

Business 5B

Sports 1D

Weather 8B

Opinion 12A-13A

Real Estate 1E

Local & State 1B

Obituaries 2B

Crosswords 8C

Help Wanted 1F

Hunter Health Clinic iscoping with financial andlegal troubles, including lay-offs, cutbacks in employeebenefits and a scaled-backfacilities plan.

Longtime CEO SusetteSchwartz, who had been onmedical leave since the end oflast year because of a familysituation, left her post in lateFebruary, she said in a phoneinterview. When asked if sheknew of Hunter’s financialdifficulties, Schwartz said:

“Hunter accomplished a lot

over the years and strugglesthrough times like this justlike any other nonprofit,”Schwartz said. “I’m surethey’ll make it through this,and if they need to cut back alittle, I’m sure they’ll be ableto bounce back.”

The clinic was founded in1976 to serve Native Amer-icans and expanded to servepeople of all backgrounds in1985, according to its website.

It received more than$690,000 in governmentgrants in 2010, according toits most recent 990 IRS tax

OFFICIALS CITE END OF GRANTS, STAFF TURNOVER

Mike Hutmacher/File photo

Dental assistant Olivia Chavez, left, and Dr. Jae Lee workwith a patient at Hunter Health Clinic in 2012.

Hunter Healthfaces financialwoes, layoffsBY KELSEY RYAN

The Wichita Eagle

Please see CLINIC, Page 10A

When the robber came intoUncle Ken’s coin shop, wear-ing a scarf over his face andpointing what looked like ahandgun at Ken Preble, theshop owner had a right todefend himself.

Video cameras in Preble’sIndependence shop that Janu-ary day caught some of thebloody struggle that followed.

When Preble pulled out a.38-caliber handgun, therobber came at him, and thetwo went to the floor andscuffled. Shots rang out. A

bullet shattered a bone inPreble’s forearm, and the mansuspected of robbing him tookfour wounds, by his defenseattorney’s count, to his tem-ple, chest, abdomen, thigh. Asthe wounded robber left theshop – clutching about$2,800 but no longer armedwith a BB gun that Preblethought was a 9mm handgun– the robber blurted outsomething: “You killed me,Ken.”

But what happened nextturned Preble from victim tocriminal, Wichita defense

LAWYER: ROBBERY VICTIM ‘STEPPED OVER THE LINE’

Kan. case drawsattention to rightto self-defense BY TIM POTTER

The Wichita Eagle

Please see DEFENSE, Page 8A

WASHINGTON — A monthafter the Obama adminis-tration pledged stepped-upsupport for Syria’s armedopposition, the governmentof President Bashar Assad’sposition has improved, with

U.S. assistance to the rebelsapparently stalled and deadlyrifts opening among theforces battling to topple theAssad regime.

Government forces appearclose to forcing rebels fromthe key city of Homs after a10-day offensive, while anal-Qaida-linked rebel group

on Thursday assassinated atop commander from themore moderate, Western-backed Supreme MilitaryCouncil, signaling what oneBritish newspaper dubbed a“civil war within a civil war.”

And that’s only some of therecent setbacks for the Syrianopposition’s two-track strug-

gle toward improved fightingcapabilities and greater polit-ical legitimacy.

In the United States, politi-cal and logistical snags arepreventing the distribution ofpromised military aid, whilein Turkey, the exiled civilian

PRESIDENT ASSAD’S GOVERNMENT GAINING GROUND

After U.S. pledge, Syrian rebels set backBY HANNAH ALLAM

McClatchy Washington Bureau

Please see SYRIA, Page 10A

It was on faith that the Sisters of the Immac-ulate Heart of Mary of Wichita broke from theirCalifornia order and came to Wichita in 1976,and it’s on faith that they’re now endeavoringto establish their first permanent home here.

“It’s a beautiful story,” said Bronwen Lewis, aCatholic who is helping the sisters raise money toend their nomadic existence.

“The story is the most compelling modern story offaith that I know of.”

Following a directive from Rome, three sisterscame to Wichita to establish the order, which nowincludes 22 women who have bounced among bor-rowed homes.

“One of these days we’re going to build,” SisterEileen MacDonald, one of founders, said to theyoung sisters in the 1980s.

There was no “we’re” about it, though.“You’re going to be the ones to build it,” Mac-

Donald told them.“It was ingrained,” said one of those young sisters,

Sisters find home‘in God’s country’

Mike Hutmacher/The Wichita Eagle

The Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary walk the site where they hope to build a new formation house andmotherhouse in Colwich. The sisters currently reside in four separate convents due to space constraints.

Mike Hutmacher/The Wichita Eagle

Sister Marie Bernadette Mertens of the Sisters of theImmaculate Heart of Mary talks about the order's habitswhile visiting the shrine to Our Lady of Fatima they arebuilding on land in Colwich.

“We have said from the beginning: ‘Our Lady’s friends will help usbuild this house, and she has lots of friends.’ ”

Mother Mary Magdalene O’Halloran

BY CARRIE RENGERS

The Wichita Eagle

Please see SISTERS, Page 6A

LOCAL & STATE, 1B

WWW.KANSAS.COM10A THE WICHITA EAGLE n SUNDAY, JULY 14, 2013

form. In 2011, there weremore than 33,000 patientswho visited the clinic, most ofwhom are underinsured oruninsured, according to itswebsite.

Over the past severalmonths, the clinic has laid offworkers and cut pay acrossthe board. It has been sued byLaboratory Corporation ofAmerica for allegedly notpaying about $100,000, ac-cording to Sedgwick CountyDistrict Court documents, andit has struggled to resolveissues with unpaid insurancepremiums. It also canceled itsemployee retirement pro-gram.

Schwartz, a Topeka native,joined Hunter in 1993 andholds a law degree fromWashburn University.

According to Hunter HealthClinic’s 2010 IRS 990 taxform, Schwartz was making asalary of $190,516 and re-ceived an additional $17,391in other compensation.

Michelle Base, who hadserved as vice president forbusiness operations and hadworked in various other posi-tions at the clinic for abouteight years, took the reins ofthe clinic following Schwartz’sdeparture.

Former board chairmanRick Muma, an associateprovost at WSU, steppeddown in October. He wasreplaced by Jaya Escobar,assistant director of UpwardBound at WSU, who said she’sbeen on the clinic’s board forabout five years.

The board meets at leastonce a month at the clinic,Escobar said, and is seekingmore board members.

“We do need to continue tooperate,” Escobar said, “andthe difference between usoperating and not operating isliterally the health of thecommunity because we servea lot of people, and we serve alot of people that won’t gethelp any other place.”

Monthly losses

It’s unclear how long theclinic has faced financial diffi-culties.

“I believe things may havestarted a year or two yearsago previously but they hadn’tbeen brought to the board’sattention, and so now thatthey have been, we’ve beentrying to address those,” Esco-bar said in a May interview.

“Like anything, if you let itfester for a while it just kindof gets infected, and we’retrying to get the infectioncleared so we can deal withthe actual wound, if thatmakes sense.”

In February, the clinic had anet loss of $17,000, Base said,which is an improvementfrom the total $80,000 in netlosses six months before.

“We’re definitely at a pointnow where we’ve depletedreserves and we need to startbuilding,” she said.

Clinic officials did not re-turn more recent phone callsand emails asking about thecurrent financial situation atthe clinic.

The clinic’s most recent IRS990 tax form is from 2010,and no recent financial docu-ments were provided by theclinic after several requests.Base said in May that theclinic is undergoing an auditand said she did not feel com-fortable releasing any figuresuntil after the audit.

During an interview inApril, Base said she attributes

some of the organization’sfinancial difficulties to theending of several grants thathelped fund positions. She didnot specify federal, state orother sources of the grants.

“We really had to take astep back and assess wherewe were at financially andmake some quick decisions,”Base said.

Some of those decisionsincluded layoffs last fall andan across-the-board pay cut of5 percent that went into effectin 2013, Base said. Shewouldn’t provide the exactnumber of employees whowere laid off.

“People say, ‘How did thishappen all of a sudden?’ Iguess I would say, I don’tknow that it happened all of asudden. It was just the waythe winds blew. When you arecruising along getting insur-ance reimbursement and cashflow is coming in, you don’tnecessarily notice that a grantended,” Base said.

“At the end of the month it’s‘Hey, this grant ended, thepayer mix isn’t the way webudgeted and we need tomake some changes.’ I think itsounded more dramatic justbecause, for the first timesince I have been there, wewere doing layoffs and wejust hadn’t had to do that.”

The clinic, which typicallyhad 69 percent to 75 percentof its patients uninsured, sawthat range increase as high as82 percent, Base said.

“It’s not a real good place tobe economically. It’s a strug-gle,” she said.

With the upcoming imple-mentation of the AffordableCare Act mandate that re-quires nearly everyone tohave insurance, Base saidshe’s hopeful that will im-prove the payer mix.

“We want to be in a placewhere we’re prepared for that– for the influx of patients –so we need to strengthen a lotof community partnershipsand shore up internal proc-esses so that we’re fully pre-pared to meet that demand,”she said.

“Bottom line is there is aneed for Hunter Health Clinic,GraceMed and the Center for Health and Wellness inthis community and we allneed each other. We need towork together to take care ofthe needs of the communityand at the end of the day,we’re going to do everythingnecessary to make sure thatHunter Health Clinic is here,that we’re viable and thatwe’re providing quality ser-vices. And I feel very stronglythat we are in that position

now.”Escobar, the board chairwo-

man, said she attributes someof the clinic’s financial trou-bles to inconsistent staffing,particularly in the position ofchief financial officer. Therewere at least three CFOs in2012 before Troy Biggs tookthe job in October, she said.

Base refused to disclose thenames of former CFOs to TheEagle after a request.

All that turnover also meantthat staff and the board weredelayed in learning the scopeof the clinic’s financial prob-lems.

Base said in April that theclinic was considering apply-ing for an $800,000 adminis-trative grant from the HealthResources and Services Ad-ministration of the Depart-ment of Health and HumanServices, which could be usedto pay off the clinic’s out-standing accounts with ven-dors. Base would not givedetails on how much the clin-ic may owe to its vendors anddid not respond to recentinquiries about the status ofthat application.

Employee benefits

Base wouldn’t provide theexact number of layoffs andrehires since last fall whenshe was interviewed in May.

However, at that point, shesaid the clinic’s staff has gonefrom 110 full-time equivalentemployees to 79 full-timeequivalent employees sincelast September because of acombination of layoffs andresignations. She said severalstaff members have sincebeen brought back, but she

did not provide the number.Additionally, the clinic dis-

continued its employee retire-ment plan, she said. The clinicmaintained its health anddental benefits.

“It’s nothing unlike whatother companies had done. …We just looked at the cost ofthe retirement plan and saidgiven tough economic times,and the local economy theway it is, we want to preservejobs – that’s most important– and maintain a high qual-ity level of care,” Base said.

The moves affected reten-tion, Base said, but she hasbeen “blown away by thededication (of) so many em-ployees – just their desire tocare for the community andsee Hunter succeed.”

In a Jan. 4 email to employ-ees about benefits, which wasprovided to The Eagle by anemployee, chief financialofficer Troy Biggs wrote:

“Some of you have receivedletters that your policy hasbeen cancelled due to non-payment. This is particularlydisturbing since your premi-ums had been collectedthrough payroll deductionwith the intent that your pre-miums would be remitted toAFLAC. The clinic did fallbehind in it remittances toAFLAC to the point of nearlybeing cancelled (approx 6-8weeks ago).

“Since that time we havebrought the plan current. Iverified this with the repre-sentative two weeks ago andagain this afternoon. Theletters you have receivedregarding your cancellationhave been produced by theAFLAC system as a responseto the earlier issues.”

The email also stated thatthe employee health anddental plans had reached thepoint of cancellation “afterseveral months of non-pay-ment,” but that the paymentshad been made current.

“I can’t really speak to previ-ous practices,” Base said inApril when asked about thebenefits. “I can say that rightnow we’re 100 percent cur-rent.”

When asked where themoney that had been collect-ed from payroll deductionshad gone, Base said she wasspeculating, but did offer thisexplanation:

“When the money is deduct-ed from checks, the moneydoesn’t go from this to this.The money may not reallyeven be there. This soundsreally weird. There’s thecheck, you denote the deduc-tions, but if the money wasnever there, it doesn’t go to a

different pot or you don’t takethat money and pay it to-wards something else,” shesaid.

“It’s not like you’d deductmy health insurance benefitand pay mileage to an em-ployee. It wasn’t quite likethat. Money would never betaken from one source andgiven to another. It doesn’t gointo different pots of money… not when you have a nega-tive bottom line of $80,000.”

She wouldn’t answer addi-tional questions about theprevious administration andprevious financial practices.

Escobar said during the Mayinterview that the board wasnot given a realistic picture ofwhere the clinic was financial-ly. She said the AFLAC issuewas not immediately broughtto the board’s attention.

“We were given informa-tion, it’s just maybe the in-formation wasn’t clear andwasn’t – I don’t want to saythat it was completely notthere – but it was just, therewas always some sort ofsomething given to us, but asfar as accuracy and the issueof multiple CFOs, there weretimes when things were be-hind, like monthly state-ments,” she said.

Clinic officials declined toprovide names of previousCFOs.

Patient services

As part of the reorganiza-tion, the clinic closed its Dia-betes Care Center and movedthose services to the clinic’sother locations earlier thisyear.

“We’re still providing thoseservices, just not in an isolat-ed setting,” Base said. “We’vejust been looking at financesand saying what can we dothat’s a smart business movethat doesn’t detract from thehigh-level quality services thatwe want to provide and whatmakes good economicalsense. … It was the only sitewe didn’t own and had over-head costs attached to it.”

The clinic’s optometrist, anemployee of the Indian HealthService, a federal agency, wasrelocated by the agency toArizona in April. Base said inApril that she wasn’t consid-ering adding another optome-trist.

She said the reduced work-force hasn’t affected the num-ber of patients the clinic isable to see. On average, pro-viders at the clinic see 20 to24 patients a day, she said.

According to the clinic’sFacebook page, the clinic’sfees increased effective June1. The previous minimumpayment for an uninsuredpatient was $25. It increasedto $35 for an establishedpatient and $45 for a newpatient, or one who has notbeen seen in at least the lastthree years.

The fees are based on themost recent poverty guide-lines from Health and HumanServices.

New facility

In May 2012, Hunter offi-cials announced they wouldbuild a new clinic after receiv-ing a $4.6 million federalgrant. The award was part of$730 million for communityhealth centers across thecountry, distributed underprovisions of the AffordableCare Act.

The building was plannedto replace a dilapidated facil-ity at 2318 E. Central. Hunterhas three other locations:Inter-Faith Ministries, 935 N.Market; the Wichita ChildGuidance Center, 415 N. Pop-lar; and Brookside, 2750 S.Roosevelt, according to itswebsite.

The original plan was toconstruct a $10 million build-ing, but Base said in April thatplans were being scaled back.She said there wasn’t a timeline for when constructionwould begin, but it must bebuilt by June 2015, accordingto grant guidelines.

“It’s still very much in the works,” Base said. “Theoriginal plan was to raiseadditional funds through afundraising campaign for alarger building. We’re work-ing now on a scaled-backbuilding based on funds weactually have in hand. …Obviously there’s a need for anew building here.”

The building would be con-structed behind the clinic’scurrent location on Central,demolishing the old buildingafterward for parking, Basesaid.

“I can only think having anew building will help,” shesaid. “We keep asking ‘Whyare we losing the insuredpatients to the other healthcenters?’ Well, no doubt thebuilding has something to dowith it.”

Restraining order

On May 20, The WichitaEagle, under the Kansas OpenRecords Act, requested accessto any clinic-related emails inthe Wichita State Universityaccounts of former Hunterboard chairman Muma andcurrent chairwoman Escobar.The request was made beforethe interview with Escobar.Muma and Escobar are bothWSU employees.

On May 22, the clinic suedWSU and The Eagle seekingto block release of the emails.The clinic obtained a tempo-rary restraining order in Sedg-wick County District Court,arguing that the emails,though connected to a publicagency’s email system, areexempt from open recordslaws because they containattorney-client communi-cation or personnel and fi-nance issues. The Eagle iscontesting the clinic’s requestfor a permanent injunction,and WSU has said it will do asthe court instructs. The case isset for trial July 29.

The Eagle requested fromBase – prior to the issue ofthe temporary restrainingorder – Hunter’s board min-utes since September, thetotal number of employeeswho had been laid off andthose subsequently broughtback on, a list of former CFOs,and any other recent financialdocuments.

Emails and messages fol-lowing up on those requestshave not been returned.

Reach Kelsey Ryan at 316-269-6752

or kryan@wichitaeagle.com. Follow

her on Twitter: @kelsey_ryan.

CLINICFrom Page 1A

Mike Hutmacher/File photo

Over the past several months, the Hunter Health Clinic has laid off workers and cut payacross the board.

HUNTER HEALTH

CLINIC BOARD

MEMBERS

n Jaya Escobar, boardchairwoman

n Bill Cornelln Mary Morainn Diana Jackson (does

not attend and never officiallyresigned)

n Isabel Gyongyossayn Eugene Cameronn Louisa Brunern Heather Bakern Demetria Wilsonn Helen Rouge

Information provided by JayaEscobar

Brian Corn/File photo

Longtime CEO SusetteSchwartz, who had been onmedical leave since the endof last year because of afamily situation, left her postin late February.

Syrian Opposition Coalitionremains mired in organiza-tional turmoil.

The coalition’s prime minis-ter, Ghassan Hitto, a natural-ized American citizen, re-signed his post, days after thegroup elected a new chair-man, Ahmed Assi al Jarba.Hitto and Jarba representdifferent factions in the orga-nization, one backed by Qa-tar, the other by Saudi Arabia,with Jarba’s election repre-senting a Saudi victory.

Jarba’s ascendency is also adefeat for the Syrian MuslimBrotherhood, which has dom-inated the exile opposition foryears.

The biggest reversals, howev-er, came inside Syria, whereareas once solidly under rebelcontrol have begun to slip away.That has cut into the opposi-

tion’s ability to provide aid tohungry, besieged communities– a key part of a strategy toprove it could govern Syria,should Assad fall.

“The desperation is spread-ing. It’s becoming an issue inall the areas in which weoperate,” said an official withthe Assistance CoordinationUnit, the Turkey-based oppo-sition office that’s a clear-inghouse for foreign aid.

The official, speaking oncondition of anonymity becauseof the political sensitivitiessurrounding foreign aid, saidplans are underway for theUnited States to release$500,000 immediately to helpwith emergency food baskets,mainly destined for Homs. Theunit estimates that 1.6 millionfood baskets are needed eachmonth throughout Syria; just150,000 are currently beingprovided, the official said.

But the unit is having growingdifficulties in delivering the foodbaskets. In one rebel-controlledarea in the countryside outside

Aleppo, the official said, hungryresidents have created a “block-ade” to prevent the aid fromreaching regime-held districts,arguing that opposition support-ers should be the priority whenit comes to food.

At another site in Aleppo,the official said, hard-lineIslamist fighters seized thefood at a warehouse before itcould be distributed.

“They seized it and arrestedall the members of the localcouncil,” the official said.

Inaction from Congress

Meanwhile, increased military

assistance that the Obama ad-ministration promised in mid-June after it determined that theAssad government had usedchemical weapons has stalledbecause Congress is dividedover whether and how to armthe rebels.

That program was to be han-dled by the CIA, but Congress’intelligence committees haveyet to approve the program. OnFriday, members’ offices de-clined to discuss the program.

A review of recent state-ments by members of both theHouse and the Senate com-mittees found a mix of opin-ions. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-

Fla., said last month that hewould have favored sendingweapons long ago to ensurethat vetted, moderate rebelswere “the best armed, bestequipped and best trained,”while the committee’s chair-woman, Sen. Dianne Fein-stein, D-Calif., last monthseemed to favor United Na-tions action over U.S. action,calling on the Security Coun-cil to “finally take strong andmeaningful action to end thiscrisis in Syria.”

In the House of Representa-tives, tea party members havejoined forces with some Dem-ocrats to introduce legislationthat would forbid the Obamaadministration from sendingarms to Syria without theapproval of Congress. Rep.Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.,said sending weapons to theopposition would be tanta-mount to “arming and aidingextremist groups who seek todefeat us and our way of life.”

One surprising developmentis that in spite of the govern-

ment’s offensive in Homs, thenumber of deaths being re-ported has declined.

In a series of reports on theconflict there, the SyrianNetwork for Human Rights,an anti-Assad group thattracks casualties among rebelsand civilians, chronicled a 23percent decline in overallcasualties from May to June,from 3,379 deaths to 2,588.That decline is continuing inJuly, with the human rightsnetwork reporting 751 deathsin the first 11 days of themonth, vs. more than 870 inthe first 11 days of June.

The drop in strictly civiliancasualties was even greater,according to the network’sfigures. Of the June deaths,the network described 924 asarmed rebels, leaving thenon-combatant toll at 1,664.In May, when the networksaid that 716 armed rebelswere among the dead, thenon-combatant toll was2,663. The difference repre-sents a 37 percent decline.

SYRIAFrom Page 1A

Government forces appear close to forcing rebels fromthe key city of Homs after a 10-day offensive, while anal-Qaida-linked rebel group on Thursday assassinated atop commander from the more moderate,Western-backed Supreme Military Council, signalingwhat one British newspaper dubbed a “civil war within acivil war.”