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Retired hospital administrator applies for board seat at Sarasota Hospital

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The head of the Democratic Party expects a fourth candidate to run for the last open seat; creating closed Republican primaries for August 20

A retired hospital administrator from Chicago filed to run as a Democrat for At-Large Seat 1 on the Sarasota County Public Hospital Board, which governs the Sarasota Memorial Health Care System.

The decision by Alan Jerome Sprintz, who has held senior administrative positions at Olympia Fields Osteopathic Medical Center, the Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council and South Suburban Hospital, brings the number of Democratic candidates to three and sets up a closed Republican primary for three of the four open seats on the hospital board.

“I chose to run for hospital board because I saw a challenge to the community hospital’s purpose of providing medical care to the community versus profits for shareholders,” Sprintz said in a prepared statement. “I’ve seen the emptying of hospitals when they were privatized, just ask Senator (Rick) Scott (R-FL) how that works.

Sprintz, a Sarasota resident who has a bachelor’s degree in history and political science from Pennsylvania State University and a master’s degree in hospital administration from George Washington University, said the candidacies for people who have been critical of Sarasota Memorial’s handling with the COVID pandemic a different motivation.

“I read about the challenge to Sarasota Memorial Hospital to deviate from recognized standards of care, to introduce unproven treatments that have not been validated by research, and to eliminate proven treatments (such as) vaccines…,” he said.

Democrats will likely field four candidates for the hospital board

Unless other candidates join the race, Sprintz would face the winner of the Aug. 20 primary between Republicans Sharon Wetzler DePeters and Tamzin Rosenwasser.

DePeters is an incumbent chairman, while Rosenwasser is one of four “medical freedom” candidates hoping to join three other candidates who won seats on the nine-member board in 2022.

Sarasota County Democratic Party Chairman Daniel Kuether noted that he plans to recruit a candidate for Central District Seat 1, where incumbent Republican hospital board chairwoman Sarah Lodge will face off against Medical Examiner candidate Tanya Parus freedom, in what would otherwise be an open primary. .

In the At-Large Seat 3, Democrat George Davis faces the winner of the Republican Primary between Mary Flynn O’Neill, another medical freedom candidate who is the sister of Michael Flynn, former President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, and Pam Beitlich.

In the At-Large Seat 2 race, medical freedom candidate Dr. Kendra Becker-Musante and outspoken hospital critic Dr. Stephen Guffanti is competing in a three-way primary with fellow Republican Kevin Cooper, with the winner facing Democrat John A. Lutz in November.

So far, the Democratic Party has specifically attacked the philosophy of the medical freedom candidates with what it calls a “competency team” and campaigned against the possibility of the hospital being privatized, although all four medical freedom candidates express the desire expressed their desire to keep this. the institute audience.

“With the addition of Alan Sprintz to our competency team, Sarasota voters now have a clear choice between outstanding medical and hospital professionals and a so-called ‘medical freedom list’ made up of extremists with no experience in medicine or hospital administration,” Kuether said. in a prepared statement.

Board race to influence voters’ thoughts on ‘medical freedom’

Hospital board races had been historically low-key prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to a slate of “Health Freedom” candidates running for four of the five seats in 2022.

The slate campaigned on skepticism about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, social distancing and mask mandates and was critical of Sarasota Memorial’s patient care during the pandemic.

Three of those four candidates won seats on the board. Their voices helped push the hospital to conduct an independent investigation into its practices during the pandemic.

Public meetings discussing that study drew hundreds of people — including health freedom advocates; Hospital administration support staff have been actively recruited to speak in support of the facility; and state and national activists who showed up for the open mic opportunity to air their grievances about everything from mask mandates to reported post-vaccine physical complications.

That created a scene with long lines of people being screened by metal detectors. It also prompted some hospital critics to call for the privatization of the public hospital

After the board voted to approve the COVID review, hospital staff were subjected to death threats both via voicemail and electronic media – something that was also criticized by medical freedom advocates.

The proposal could once again pack the hospital’s board meetings

While that uproar eventually died down, Victor Rohe, one of the successful Health Freedom candidates, created a new flashpoint in January when he suggested that SMH post a message on the hospital’s website denouncing Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo espoused that COVID-19 vaccinations are risky and unsuitable for human use, a position that federal health officials say is contrary to science and potentially fatal. That proposal will since be heard by the hospital board at its May 21 meeting.

Medical freedom advocates are once again urging their supporters to attend that rally.

Even as an eight-member board after Britt Riner resigned her position in At-Large Seat 3 to focus on a recent appointment by Governor Ron DeSantis to the Florida Interagency Coordinating Council for Infants and Toddlers, Rohe may not have enough votes to see that movement was successful.

That means his proposal would likely become a campaign issue for the four medical freedom candidates.

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