Southeast Carries On Despite Shortages

Hospital Staffers Lauded for Loyalty

The doctors and nurses who for decades have staffed Greater Southeast Community Hospital remember when theirs was a premier institution, a source of pride and an anchor for Ward 8 and the neighborhoods beyond.

Those memories hit hard as they pull into its unkempt parking lot off Southern Avenue and see what exists today: a facility close to crisis, with such severe cuts and neglected problems that regulators say patient care and safety have been jeopardized.

"It's really difficult to look back," physician Victor Nelson acknowledges. "It's painful."

Today, the District hospital's obstetrical nurses plead for crib sheets for their babies. The operating room is dark and silent every other weekday. X-ray machines and IV pumps are pushed to the side for lack of repair, and patients are shipped out for routine tests such as bone scans.

Greater Southeast's crisis stems from years of paltry capital investment, swelling numbers of uninsured patients, changes in health care reimbursement and particularly, according to many people, bad management by an absentee landlord. Most believe the crunch would have come sooner and harder if not for the hospital's workers. At a recent hearing, the chairman of the D.C. Council's health committee singled out their dedication in his otherwise scathing remarks about Greater Southeast's corporate owner.

"The people who are left now are mission driven," declared David A. Catania (I-At Large).

That commitment is not just to patients and the community. Again and again, the employees talk about allegiance to one another, about not abandoning colleagues after all they've endured collectively. "It's like family," explained Thomas Tobias, an anesthesia technician with 30 years' tenure there.

Yet the deteriorating physical and fiscal conditions have taken a toll on everyone. There is little new and nothing fancy at Greater Southeast. It has 110 beds, a quarter of the number it once filled. Entire wings -- even an entire floor -- are locked and mothballed. Patient rooms have been converted for storage or cannibalized for fixtures.

"You make do with what you have," a nurse said matter-of-factly last week. Some of Tobias's equipment had been in use at D.C. General Hospital before it was shut down. "You bring it over, parts are missing," he noted.

Not surprisingly, given the harsh spotlight -- and the near-universal condemnation of parent company Envision Hospital Corp. -- once-loyal patients have defected. Their loss has exacerbated the money woes, with the hemorrhaging approaching $800,000 a month.

"I don't see those faces anymore," Tobias said. In the hospital's largely deserted cafeteria, his voice sounded pained. "It's not because they're so healthy. They're scared to come here."

Greater Southeast dates to 1966. Built with private and public funds on federally donated land, it opened as the nonprofit Cafritz Memorial Hospital and for a long time was one of the region's busiest medical centers. The changing demographics and economics of its immediate community presented an increasing challenge, but the steep downward spiral didn't start until the late 1990s.