Sanford Health president and chief executive Kelby Krabbenhoft: your opinions are not facts

Snowboarder_Bo · November 21, 2020, 4:34am

What an arrogant, entitled asshole you are, Kelby Krabbenhoft.

The head of one of the largest regional health systems in the Midwest has told his employees that he has recovered from COVID-19 and is back in the office — without a mask.

Sanford Health’s president and chief executive, Kelby Krabbenhoft, said in an email Wednesday that he believes he’s now immune to the disease for “at least seven months and perhaps years to come” and that he isn’t a threat to transmit it to anyone, so wearing a mask would be merely for show.

The email from Krabbenhoft, who is not a physician, comes as hospitals throughout the region, including in his own network, are struggling to keep up with some of the country’s worst surges of coronavirus patients. And it comes at a time when mask wearing remains a politicized issue in many states.

Sanford Health, based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has 46 hospitals and more than 200 clinics concentrated in South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa. It employs about 50,000 people. The Dakotas have had the country’s worst spread rates for several weeks, with Iowa close behind, while Minnesota is catching up.

“For me to wear a mask defies the efficacy and purpose of a mask and sends an untruthful message that I am susceptible to infection or could transmit it,” Krabbenhoft wrote in the email, obtained by The Associated Press. “I have no interest in using masks as a symbolic gesture. … My team and I have a duty to express the truth and facts and reality and not feed the opposite.”

Fuck you, asshole.

DMC · November 21, 2020, 4:54am

I have to cut him some slack as masks aren’t free and Sanford has to tighten their purse strings, what with all of the child pornography defense money that their benefactor has to now hang on to.

But otherwise, yeah, fuck him.

Snowboarder_Bo · November 21, 2020, 5:07am

Wow; that article is filled with possible red flags.

JaneDoe42 · November 21, 2020, 5:25am

CEO tells minions that he had it, got the best care and is over it, its not so bad that he’s going to put on a mask for show. Oh, and BTW, its open enrollment for your health care, your costs have gone up and we certainly aren’t going to pay you enough to get the medical care I did.

Do I have that right?

Snowboarder_Bo · November 21, 2020, 5:28am

You left out the part where he tells everyone his unfounded opinion is “the truth and facts and reality”.

nearwildheaven · November 21, 2020, 5:36am

Sanford Health negotiated to buy a hospital system in my area. Not just a hospital, but the whole system.

People who worked for them breathed a big sigh of relief when the talks fell through.

Deeg · November 21, 2020, 6:20am

To play devil’s advocate, isn’t he right? AIUI he won’t be contagious for a while, possibly years.

casdave · November 21, 2020, 6:32am

Well the facts keep changing as new discoveries are made, things such as getting it a second time.

So he might believe he has facts that might not be the case in a weeks time.

Also, by making such a public statement he is providing comfort and excuses for those idiots who refuse to wear masks because FREEDOM.

However it is logical for him to do this, the more patients his organisation has, the more business opportunities there will be - is that too cynical?

RitterSport · November 21, 2020, 1:17pm

Maybe? Unless the virus mutates, or he actually had a different disease and tested false-positive for COVID.

In any case, he’s setting an example for his workers who think they’ve had it to stop wearing masks. Lots of people probably think they’ve had it when they’ve really had the flu or a cold.