Charity hospital's board of administrators can conduct its $8,000,000-a-year business in secret sessions and does not have to make its actions public unless it wants to do so, the board's attorney said last night.
The opinion was given to the board by attorney Charles W. Kehl as it prepared to go into closed session
for the second time within a week.
Following adoption of the motion to go into closed session, reporters, ordered to leave, asked board chairman William August Worner: "Under what law or bylaw of this board are you authorized to bar the press through executive session?"
Worner referred the question to Kehl, who told Worner: "You don't have the right to go into executive session, according to law, but neither are you restricted from doing so." Decides Tied Vote
The board split 5 to 5 on the motion and Worner cast the deciding vote for the secret session.
Board member Charles A. Far-well, long opposed to secret board sessions, then asked Kehl if minutes of board meetings are public records. Kehl replied: "Some of them are."
"That's not what I asked you," Farwell continued. "I said: 'Are all minutes of this board from both executive and open sessions open to the public?' "
Kehl answered: "No"
According to the laws establishing the hospital, the board has "full power and authority to manage and administer the hospital; to repair and improve its property, of whatever nature it may be, to rent and lease same, and to enter into any kind of contracts (sales of real estate excepted)." Intimidation Charged
Worner said the board has no official rules of procedures. "I guess we follow Robert's Rules of Order," he remarked. "Doesn't everyone?"
The board went into closed session to hear a report by the medical committee of the body after members of the committee had ac-cused Dr. Robert Bernhard, director of the hospital, of intimidation against members of the hospital's resident physicians.
Dr. W. J. Rein said the committee had prepared its report after two days of investigation. He said he had received a registered letter containing a petition signed "by two-thirds of the hospital's resident corps."
Among other things, Dr. Rein said the letter indicated the doctors had "been thrown into a state of panic and confusion when they were led to believe that they would be given a chance to remove their names from the petition (which was presented to the board last week and which charged misad-ministration in the hospital) or 25 or 30 old disciplinary cases passed
in the past would be reopened."
