Amid strike, interim CEO says she thinks as a nurse

The strike by 1,500 nurses and allied professionals at Temple University Hospital has put the hospital's interim chief executive, Sandy Gomberg, in the spotlight.

A nurse herself, Gomberg has become the public face and, on radio ads, voice of the North Philadelphia institution as it makes its case that it must take a hard line against PASNAP (Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals) even as it spends millions on strike-replacement workers.

While striking workers say Temple could settle for what it's spending to stay open during the strike, Gomberg says the long-term costs of meeting the nurses' demands "dwarf" the cost of staying open during the strike, now in its fourth week. And, she said, costs are dropping as striking workers cross the picket line to return to work. She said 10 percent of PASNAP members (the union said it was 6.5 percent) were now working under the terms of the hospital's contract proposal.

A bargaining session is scheduled for noon Saturday.

At issue are pay raises, health insurance, tuition payments for employees' dependents, a clause that would prevent union members from publicly criticizing the hospital, and random drug testing. Temple wants to freeze pay in the first year of the contract, with 2 percent to 2.5 percent annual raises after that, while the union wants 3 percent raises each year.

Gomberg, who has been accessible to reporters and even-tempered under fire, says she doesn't enjoy this public battle. "It really doesn't move the work ahead," she said.

That's as close to emotional disclosure as Gomberg - who has a penchant for dry, management lingo - comes while discussing her views. As she has from day one, she hammered out the hospital's chief talking point: "The number-one goal is continued, uninterrupted provision of quality care."

The union believes Edmond F. Notebaert, president and chief executive officer of Temple University Health System, is calling the shots, but Gomberg, who has been interim CEO of the hospital since January 2009, said that, "as it relates to Temple University Hospital, I have the final say." She said she and Notebaert were in "robust communication." The hospital rejected a request to talk to Notebaert.

Gomberg's first job was in the pediatric intensive-care unit at Albert Einstein Medical Center, where she also got her first management positions. She worked for home-care companies and was a consultant before joining Temple in 1997 to help get its now-defunct children's hospital started.

"As a nurse, I always see through a nurse's eyes," she said. ". . . It's not just a career choice, but it is a way of learning, a way of approaching patients and the care you provide, the way you assess patients, the way you think about all aspects of patient care."

Her management decisions, she said, "always start with the patient in the center." She has gravitated toward management because she "loves the work of leadership. I love the work of engaging the workforce and creating teams toward the execution of mission."

Her job now is to keep the hospital financially stable - it lost $11.6 million in the first six months of its current fiscal year - while attracting the best workforce she can.

Other unions at the hospital have tried to "understand those economic realities," she said, and have accepted concessions the nurses are rejecting. She said no one in management, including Gomberg, had gotten a raise in the last two years. She would not disclose her salary.

"Our nurses are at the top of the market in hourly wages," she said, "and the proposals that are out there keep them at the top of the market."

She said Temple had gotten 2,500 job applications, including 300 from nurses, since the strike began.

Asked how the strike would affect the hospital in the long term, she said: "I think the consequences will be continued improvement in quality of care, and I know that probably sounds funny."

The replacement workers, who come from all over the country, have brought new ideas that have improved efficiency. "They have brought approaches and talents and experiences," she said, "that have helped us look at new ways of doing things."

Name: Sandy Gomberg.

Title: Interim chief executive, Temple University Hospital.

Previous job: Associate director for clinical services at the hospital.

Age: 47.

Home town: Lansdale.

Education: Bachelor's

and master's degrees, Villanova University.

First job: Pediatric intensive-care-unit nurse, Albert Einstein Medical Center, Philadelphia.

Dream job: Chief executive of Children's Hospital

of Philadelphia.

SOURCE: Sandy GombergEndText