City Is Told to Flex Oversight Muscle

Catania Urges a 'Vigilant Presence'

The D.C. Council's Health Committee chairman said yesterday that he will push to have Greater Southeast Community Hospital put in court receivership if its corporate owner does not pay to remedy extensive problems there.

"We have expansive power . . . and we need to explore that in its entirety," David A. Catania (I-At Large) noted at a hearing to update the Health Committee on conditions at the hospital and the city's efforts to force improvements.

Catania suggested that the Health Department station its own medical personnel around the clock, especially in the emergency room, to maintain a "regular and vigilant presence" at Greater Southeast. "I think we need someone on the premises," he said.

Greater Southeast's shortcomings, identified in a detailed report by the Health Department, range from staffing to equipment to supplies. Regulators recently fined the hospital $6,500 for several deficiencies, including failing to maintain a sanitary environment.

"Things are getting worse . . . the patient care is deteriorating," said council member Marion Barry (D), whose Ward 8 constituents are most affected. "I'm frustrated and dismayed, and we have to act."

Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) also voiced growing concern over the facility's precipitous decline. Seeking a court-appointed receiver to run the hospital is "an option we obviously have on the table" and one that is better than closing the hospital altogether, he said.

"For me, it's a question of what do we have to do to ensure and provide the quality of care?" said Gray, who is trying to convene a meeting of city leaders, the hospital's top administrators and officials from its parent company, Envision Hospital Corp. Envision has signed a contract to sell the hospital to a Prince George's County businessman, but the pace and seeming uncertainty of that purchase have raised as many questions as they have answered.

"Let's figure out what the endgame is here," Gray said.

No representatives of Greater Southeast or Envision attended yesterday's hearing. In a letter delivered shortly before it started, attorney Peter Isakoff informed Catania that his clients would not subject themselves to his "ongoing gratuitous defamations" or "calculated campaign" of intimidation.

Catania responded by publicly questioning the company's motivations and Chairman Paul Tuft's integrity.

Tuft made a commitment recently to provide Greater Southeast $500,000 a week, on top of an initial $600,000 infusion, so it can begin repairing or buying new technology and hiring additional medical and support workers.

The head of the city's Health Regulation and Licensing Administration, who termed the facility's breakdowns in area after area "acute and potentially debilitating," said the money will have an immediate impact.

"It will allow the hospital to provide some substance and bring back some stability," said Feseha Woldu. "Without the money, I can't see how they can maintain any semblance of care."

But the problems identified by city inspectors extend beyond the 110-bed hospital to the clinics Greater Southeast has run at the former D.C. General Hospital since the council closed that public facility in 2001. According to Catania, the city has paid Greater Southeast more than $46 million over six years.

Only ambulatory care clinics remain, and they are poorly run, supported and utilized, speakers at the hearing said. Doctors there walked off the job in May because they were due more than two months' salary.

"I want to know what we're paying for," Catania said.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) had made little comment on the travails of Greater Southeast. A written statement from his spokeswoman yesterday afternoon said that he believes "all residents deserve a first-rate hospital facility in every community.

"The Administration has and will continue to closely monitor the hearings concerning Greater Southeast Hospital to determine the best course of action moving forward," it concluded.