At Last, Big Changes Come To SE Hospital

"We have our medical chiefs actively addressing medical staff at other hospitals to let them know what we are doing," Wells said before an open house held for D.C. Council members, local hospital officials and others last month. "We have got a lot of people who are out there talking about all the changes."

The medical chief points out that Specialty plowed $30 million into the hospital last year to reframe it, improve insulation and replace broken radiology equipment. (The money was pulled from its $79 million partnership with the District.) The rooms in United Medical Center's skilled nursing and long-term acute-care centers have been outfitted with new chestnut dresser drawers, televisions and hospital beds. Others in the city's medical community are beginning to take note, said Robert A. Malson, president of the District of Columbia Hospital Association.

"There is a tremendous need for both nursing home beds and long-term acute-care beds in the city, and what [United Medical Center] is doing is reacting to that need and attempting to fill a void that has great importance to the city," Malson said. "They need to be commended for that, and the other hospitals in the area recognize that and are working with them."

Already there is a steady stream of patients from the surrounding community, and the doctors who left when the hospital was close to bankrupt are returning, Allen said. The sight of workers putting together furniture for the new long-term-care center makes him smile.

"I thank God," he said. "Southeast is back."

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