Mayor Vincent Gray is making a push to expand the board of directors that governs the District-owned United Medical Center as he seeks to sell the hospital to private owners. The 11-member board is packed with picks made by former Mayor Adrian Fenty, whose administration took over the medical center in July to ensure the city’s only hospital east of the Anacostia River remained open. On Tuesday, Gray is scheduled to introduce an emergency bill to the D.C. Council that would expand the board to 16, adding to it three more mayoral picks and the mayor-appointed health department director. The council would also get to choose another board member. The mayor has repeatedly said he wants to sell the hospital. According to the bill the council will consider on Tuesday, Gray wants to add members to ensure the “board’s goals and direction be aligned with that of the District government.”
As council chairman before becoming mayor, Gray appointed only D.C. accounting firm president Chris Gardiner and left two other seats vacant. There’s also one seat open for him to fill as mayor and three remaining Fenty appointees now work for Gray. The board was established through an emergency bill. Gray could seek to expand the board through permanent legislation rather than seeking another emergency bill.
At-large Councilman David Catania, who is chairman of the health committee, wants to know why Gray is in such a rush to expand the board. Gray has said the board members are standing in the way of privatizing, and have refused to step down. Catania said that other than asking for the board members’ resignations, Gray has spent little time trying to work with them on any issue, including selling the hospital.
United Medical Center has long faced financial trouble and has been passed from owner to owner with little improvement.
“We share the view that the hospital should be sold to a nonpublic entity,” Catania said. “But this is about timing. We just assumed control of it last spring.”
Catania said the city should run the hospital until it can show two years of clean audits and profits to attract a serious buyer.
“If we attract another fly-by-night owner,” Catania said, “it is certainly a predictable outcome and within a couple of years they’ll be coming back to the city asking for money.”
