A little more than a year ago, Dr. Marilyn Corder got a call from the head of pediatrics at the Greater Southeast Medical Center.
“Can you please come in today?” he asked. “Everyone else has walked out.”
The capital’s only hospital east of the Anacostia River was a wreck. It was facing bankruptcy for the second time, despite millions in District dollars. Wind and rain blew through the windows. Someone had set a fire in one of the radiology labs; it had been closed and charred for a year. Lights blinked on and off in the operating rooms. Doctors refused to work there; nurses fled — without being paid.
Thursday, Corder stood in the gusting winds in front of the hospital, her white hospital coat gleaming in the bright sun, and told me the place had been transformed. “I’m loving it,” she says. “I grew up down the street. We sure had it coming.”
What’s happened at the hospital, now called United Medical Center, is akin to a second coming. From the ashes of a hospital that had more mold than antiseptic lotion, residents of the city’s poorest wards now have a clean, well-appointed, functioning health care facility. It’s not a stretch to say United Medical Center could be the model for community health care in the Washington region.
Much of the credit for the resurrection must go to D.C. at-large Councilman David Catania, chairman of the health committee. Catania engineered the $30 million infusion of cash, which could have been good money after bad, but it has paid off — so far.
“I had spinal meningitis when I was 18 months old, and my life was saved by a public hospital,” he tells me. “That’s what safety nets are supposed to do. But that’s not why I wanted to do this.”
He stops in front of the building and waves his hand toward the row homes of Congress Heights. “I represent these people,” he says. “Having a first-class hospital here undercuts the sense that we are two cities — one that has great care and one that has none.”
Dr. Doriann Thomas ushers me into a room under construction that will house the new MRI machine, looking like a giant jet engine. “[The hospital] is something the whole community can embrace,” she says. Like Corder, Thomas is a native Washingtonian. “This hospital was in distress,” she says.
“Doctors were walking out. Now we have equipment and facilities that will attract the best. It’s a radiologist’s dream.”
Rather than facing a shutdown, United Medical Center was just accredited by a regional commission. It is partnering with Children’s National Medical Center to create a pediatric emergency room; it’s collaborating with Southeastern University to train technicians; its Healing Our Village program focuses on diabetes education and treatment.
Catania, who aims to reform medical care in D.C. at many levels, meets with hospital managers monthly, with Attorney General Peter Nickles, to monitor the city’s $30 million investment.
Says Catania: “We didn’t just cut a check and walk away.”
