Change in leadership at The Meadows Psychiatric Center amid unionization effort
The top executive at the largest psychiatric hospital in Centre County left the post, an executive for the company that operates the hospital said in a statement Monday.
The Meadows Psychiatric Center’s former CEO Robin Weagley accepted a position on Universal Health Services’ corporate development team, Behavioral Health Division Group CEO Shauna Mogerman said. The move was effective Friday.
Weagley, who was CEO for more than a year, declined comment Tuesday. Kevin McGee, who worked at The Meadows in 2020, will serve as interim CEO.
“We thank Robin and Kevin for their leadership as we continue to serve patients and our communities,” Mogerman said.
UHS, one of the largest hospital companies in the nation, did not say why the move was made. It came less than two weeks after dozens of workers rallied for a union and a man was accused of assaulting two employees.
Two lead union organizers earlier this month described their efforts as a last-ditch attempt to address long-standing issues. That includes workplace safety, hiring and retaining employees and support from administrators, former registered nurse supervisors Tami Kraynak and Dawn Taylor said.
Kraynak wrote in a text message Tuesday that Weagley “created a hostile work environment, gaining compliance from fear and running everything with profit as the goal.”
“Safety was dismissed in order to fill beds with no regard to the effects that the higher acuity patients would have on the rest of the unit, or on our already over-worked staff,” Kraynak wrote. “We asked for help time and time again with no response until we realized that as a group, a union, we had to be heard.”