Whatever else one might say about Saint John’s Health Center, it does not lack self-confidence.

Consider the opening sentence of a July 5 press release: “All area residents and property owners are welcome to attend Saint John’s Health Center’s Annual Community Outreach Meeting on Thursday, July 12, 2012.”

It’s a “community outreach meeting,” but whether the community attends or not is obviously of little interest to the hospital.

The press release continues, “At the meeting, Saint John’s Community Benefits Director will provide information about the benefits Saint John’s provided to its community partners in 2011.”

“Benefits?” A great many “community partners,” i.e., neighbors, are not aware of any benefits, but are acutely aware of the stench from the inadequate garbage facilities, chronic traffic congestion, perpetual parking problems and the other troublea that Saint John’s provides for its “community partners.”

Neighbors of the hospital, i.e., its “community partners,” have spent more than a decade trying to persuade the City to resolve the traffic and parking problems generated by the hospital that afflict the neighborhood. But the City allowed Saint John’s to delay constructing the underground parking structure that would have allayed the problems for 13 years, and then granted Saint John’s request that it further delay construction.

Given that, one wonders what the “Saint John’s Community Benefits Director” has been doing.

The press release concludes “A construction update will also be provided and all concerns related to the Development Agreement will be addressed. Come meet Saint John’s Community Ombudsperson, Lindsay Barker, and learn more about what is going on in your own backyard.”

In fact, mid-City residents would be a lot happier if Saint John’s would confine its activities to its own backyard, not theirs.

It’s probably not a coincidence that new ombudsperson Barker’s speciality is “emergency management.”

The Registered Nurses who formed a union a year ago have spent upwards of a year trying to negotiate a contract, but the hospital has persisted in stonewalling and punishing nurses for imaginary misdemeanors.

Incidentally, the Community outreach meeting Thursday will not offer much time for
discussion. It will be held from 3 to 4pm
and repeated from 7 to 8, in the Fourth Floor Conference Room.

But there will be refreshments and validation for parking in Valet Lot C on “Saint Monica Boulevard.”

Saint John’s was founded in 1942 by the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth It is not known when “Saint Monica’s” Boulevard was created.