Jul 20, 2006  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

The Whitman-Walker Clinic’s recently hired executive director fired the Clinic’s chief operating officer and medical director on July 13, renewing concern among employees about the organization’s stability, according to sources familiar with the Clinic.

Donald Blanchon, a managed care executive who started work as head of Whitman-Walker on May 1, stunned Clinic employees when he announced in a July 14 e-mail that Roberta Geidner-Antoniotti, the chief operating officer and former interim executive director, and Dr. Philippe Chiliade, the medical director, “are no longer with the clinic.”

Whitman-Walker is a health organization founded by and for gay men and lesbians. Blanchon is heterosexual, as is Geidner-Antoniotti; Chiliade is gay.

“We want to thank both Roberta and Philippe for their numerous contributions to the clinic in recent years and wish them the very best in their future endeavors,” Blanchon said in his e-mail to the staff.

He offered no reason for their departure in the e-mail and did not indicate whether either was voluntary. Several sources close to Whitman-Walker, including two Clinic staffers, said it was obvious that the two officials had been dismissed.

The Clinic staffers spoke on condition that they not be identified because those who work at Whitman-Walker could be subject to disciplinary action for speaking to the news media. The sources familiar with the Clinic but who do not work there had concerns that their relationship with the Clinic could be damaged if their identities were known.

At the time the Whitman-Walker board announced Blanchon’s hiring in March, both Geidner-Antoniotti and Chiliade had said they planned to remain on the staff, the sources said.

Blanchon told the Blade this week that he could not comment on Geidner-Antoniotti and Chiliade’s departures other than to confirm that they no longer work at Whitman-Walker.

“I really can’t discuss any personnel matters related to any individual employee for a whole host of compliance and employment law issues,” he said.

Reached at her home in Maryland, Geidner-Antoniotti said she spent most of the time between April 27 and the entire month of May on leave to care for her ailing husband, who died May 30 of pancreatic cancer.

“I have nothing to say at the moment,” she said, when asked why she no longer worked at Whitman-Walker.

Chiliade said he, too, preferred not to comment on the circumstances surrounding his departure.

“Yes, it’s true that I’m not working at Whitman-Walker any longer,” he said. “But it is not possible for me to say anything more at this time.”

The apparent firings come one year after Geidner-Antoniotti, as interim executive director, struggled to keep the Clinic open during a financial crisis that forced a cut in programs, the lay off of employees, and closure of the Clinic’s medical facility in suburban Maryland.

Critics said the Clinic’s large and unwieldy board was partially responsible for the crisis by not taking steps several years earlier to reign in spending and boost the Clinic’s flagging fundraising operation. In an effort to address these issues, the board reorganized itself into a smaller body and approved a restructuring plan to transform the Clinic into a primary care health facility.

The Clinic announced in January that although it would continue as the city’s largest private medical facility caring for people with HIV and AIDS, it would also provide a wide range of non-HIV medical services for both gays and heterosexuals.

With this as a backdrop, Blanchon assumed the executive director’s post at a time when some of the Clinic’s clients and supporters worried that it was moving away from its historic role during the past 30 years as a gay community clinic.

 “Some of us think we are becoming an impersonal HMO run largely by straights who lack the knowledge and sensitivity to properly care for gay clients,” said one of the Clinic’s employees.

Blanchon said this week that the Clinic would remain faithful to its “roots” as a community clinic catering to a gay clientele while adopting financial systems to insure that it has the resources to do its work.

 “We’re in the midst of a mission-critical, client-focused transition here at the Clinic, which is basically about insuring that the Clinic has a strong future,” Blanchon said.

“We had an extremely difficult year, as you know, last year,” he said. “And we cannot and are not going to repeat that experience in 2006. So that’s the basis under which you may be hearing about some change from different places,” he said.

“It’s not unreasonable to expect that there would be some leadership changes during this transition,” Blanchon said.

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