Randolph
“On Monday (June 5), I came in expecting a routine meeting and was unfortunately fired,” said Joseph Woodin, who left Gifford in May 2016, after leading the Randolph-based hospital for 17 years.
His termination came just 13 months after he began his new post as chief executive of the hospital, which is located in Oak Bluffs, Mass., and owned by the giant Partners HealthCare chain.
The Massachusetts hospital’s board Chairman Timothy Sweet, in a statement published online by the Vineyard Gazette last Thursday, said Woodin’s termination was necessary because Woodin and the board had differing views of how the hospital ought to be managed.
“This difficult decision reflects what trustees have seen as a widening difference between the vision of the board and the ideas and leadership style of the hospital’s top executive regarding the right direction and path for the hospital,” Sweet wrote.
The hospital will be led by Tim Walsh, its former chief executive, on an interim basis while the board searches for a permanent replacement for Woodin, Sweet said in the statement.
Efforts on Monday to reach Sweet by phone and email at Farm Neck Golf Club, where he works as general manager, were unsuccessful.
Woodin pointed to a slew of online comments on news stories published in Martha’s Vineyard newspapers as evidence that his firing is “big drama on the island.”
Commenters speaking out on Woodin’s behalf included some from the Upper Valley.
“I am absolutely in a state of disbelief about the termination of Joe Woodin,” wrote a reader identified as Jean Mallary, a Hanover resident who was a member of Gifford’s board when it hired Woodin in the 1990s. “He saved our hospital and was never anything but a fine and professional leader, concerned, to his core, for the wellbeing of the hospital, staff and patients. His relationship with the board was always courteous and collegial, and we worked together to bring our shared visions to fruition. We were more than proud of him; we loved him.”
A phone message left at a Hanover number listed for Mallary and email sent to her were not returned by deadline.
Woodin declined further comment.
One difference between Gifford and Martha’s Vineyard Hospital includes the paths they have chosen in terms of affiliating with larger hospital systems.
Though many of Gifford’s small community hospital peers have affiliated with the region’s larger teaching hospitals — Dartmouth-Hitchcock or the University of Vermont Medical Center — Gifford, under Woodin’s leadership and otherwise, has opted to fly solo.
“I think the affiliation process tends to cycle,” Woodin said in a February 2016 interview with the Valley News. “I imagine Gifford will probably remain independent years down the road.”
Martha’s Vineyard Hospital chose a different path, entering into a clinical affiliation agreement with Partners in 1998. It was acquired by Mass General — a unit of Partners — in 2007.
Woodin made the decision to move to Martha’s Vineyard for personal reasons, following the deaths of his wife and his mother, he said in the February 2016 interview.
“It’s the right time for me to move forward in life and pursue another opportunity,” he said at the time.
Woodin told the Vineyard Gazette last week that he would have liked to have stayed.
“I’m not resigning,” he told the Gazette. “I love this job. I just bought a house.”
Staff Writer Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
