Home Health & Hospice Week

Hospice draws the wrong kind of attention.

Make sure your staff, including top execs, know their social media presence reflects on your agency.

Last month, Belinda Blair, CEO of Hospice of Western Kentucky, voluntarily resigned after being indefinitely suspended in late June, reports the Owensboro Times.

The hospice’s board began investigating Blair after being made aware of three “racially insensitive” memes posted to her Facebook account. Blair claimed two of the memes were a result of hacking, according to news reports.

When the memes were brought to the public’s attention, Rev. Rhondalyn Randolph, head of the Owensboro chapter of the NAACP, told the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer, “I was just floored, because of the importance of the position she holds. Can she really identify with everyone? Can we entrust that she’s going to be fair and compassionate in how she relates to people?”

Blair and the hospice board released separate statements about the resignation that did not address the incident or investigation, the Times says. Hospice of Western Kentucky’s statement did reference its “mission of caring for those in the final phase of a life-limiting illness without regard to race, color, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, disability (mental or physical), national origin, diagnosis, ability to pay, or membership in any other protected category,” according to the newspaper.