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Smells like a cover-up

by Jim Edwards
| November 7, 2021 12:00 AM

An Associated Press article Oct. 19 featured the headline “Hospital: Public officials threaten doctors over Covid care.”

We can only hope that it is very unusual in our country for three different public officials to threaten anybody, let alone medical doctors, when they are working.

Obviously, someone is lying regarding whether or not doctors were “harassed and threatened.” The hospital says it happened. Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen says it ain’t so.

The article also revealed that Knudsen had dispatched a HP Trooper to the hospital. Apparently, this is outside Knudsen’s authority per jurisdictional rules. Knudsen’s story remains rather vague regarding much of what happened.

What we know:

Things blew up on Oct. 12. Both parties agree.

Politics was involved: Board members, three public officials, an 80+ year old patient active in Republican politics, Ivermectin, Montana Federation of Republican Women (MFRW) are all in-the-loop.

The MHP trooper who did the investigation relayed findings to Lewis and Clark County Attorney Leo Gallagher who concluded that the hospital was not guilty of any criminal offenses that needed investigating.

The Attorney General’s Department of Justice, apparently through its Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, is still investigating St. Peter’s for committing fraud and/or patient abuse/neglect.

Some say the MHP and the Medicaid Fraud Unit are “literally the same agency.”

St. Peter’s Hospital maintains that public officials tried to direct their patient’s treatment. AG Knudsen says that didn’t happen.

A patient and/or the patient’s family cannot direct a hospital or doctor to prescribe Ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19. It’s illegal for them to do that.

Confusion exists over the 2015 law, “Right-To-Try.” It does not require a doctor to prescribe medication or any type of treatment. Instead, a manufacturer of an experimental drug may make a medication available to a terminally ill patient. It’s a complicated process.

The description of what the AG does for us here in Montana, per its website, is as follows: Under Montana law, the Attorney General is the State’s chief legal officer, chief law enforcement officer, and Director of the Montana Department of Justice. As the State’s chief legal officer, the Attorney General is responsible for representing and defending Montana’s legal positions and Montana’s laws with other sovereign governments such as the federal government and other states.

Here are questions we (the regular Joe’s who aren’t able to call a board member to ask them to call a top public official) deserve answers to:

Who are the other two Montana public officials involved?

Did they actually attempt to demand what care the medical doctors provided?

Did these public officials threaten doctors?

What were the findings of the MHP, the DOJ, and their Medicaid Fraud Unit regarding the very serious allegations that: “The hospital mistreated a patient and violated her rights and her family’s rights?”

I or someone in my family may need to go there and if that’s how St. Peter’s Hospital operates, especially when it involves a prominent, high-profile customer, it’s only fair that this community knows the truth.

Are the Montana Highway Patrol and the Medicaid Fraud Unit really – “literally the same agency?”

This smells like a massive cover-up that has spilled into the public domain. It’s totally reasonable that not only Helena residents but our entire state gets honest answers.

Jim Edwards lives in Helena.