Further barriers on MCP closing
Posted on Fri, Jan. 09, 2004
Philadelphia Inquirer

A Phila. judge has restricted Tenet from hastening the hospital's shutdown and will hear an advocacy suit Feb. 19.

By Karl Stark
Inquirer Staff Writer

 

A Philadelphia judge yesterday further restricted the ability of Tenet Healthcare Corp. to hasten the closing of Medical College of Pennsylvania Hospital, scheduled for March 31.

The four-page order from Common Pleas Court Judge Matthew D. Carrafiello also set a court hearing for Feb. 19 on the lawsuit from a community group, the Association to Save MCP, which is seeking a permanent injunction to bar Tenet from closing the hospital.

After negotiating in the judges' chambers for more than an hour, both sides agreed that Tenet would not speed the hospital's demise by restricting access to MCP's emergency room or by using that area to hold patients who should be admitted at MCP.

Tenet further agreed not to remove equipment and to reinstall any items taken out since Dec. 30, when Carrafiello entered an initial order. Tenet, the nation's second-largest for-profit hospital company, also said it would not transfer patients to other facilities except for medical reasons.

MCP spokeswoman Maria Iaquinto said the hospital's $5 million gamma knife for brain surgery had not been moved and would actually start operations Jan. 19 despite the pending closure.

Tenet had earlier said it would not sell MCP to a competitor. But the company now is "not foreclosing any possibilities," corporate spokesman Jeff Jubelirer said yesterday. Still, he added, the order yesterday does not affect the timetable for closure.

Gerald K. Schrom, an attorney for the MCP group, opened the proceedings by raising pictures of empty rooms that he said had been stripped of computer equipment by Tenet. He and others hailed the order for keeping alive the group's quest to save the hospital.

"This hospital has had about nine lives," added Philip Mead, director of the MCP emergency room and president of the medical staff. "It's somewhere around number five."

The anti-closure group has been busy courting elected officials. MCP cardiologist Nancy J. Pickering, who has led the save-MCP effort, said she met on Tuesday afternoon in Washington with Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), along with representatives from Tenet and the federal health agencies.

'Find a buyer'

At the meeting, Specter, who is running for reelection, asked federal health officials to look for ways to help MCP, Pickering said. She said he also gave her an assignment: "Go out and find a buyer for MCP. I know you can do it."

A press spokesman for Specter did not respond to a call for comment.

Pennsylvania Gov. Rendell has also been active, holding two conference calls and several meetings on the closure. The governor is scheduled to meet Monday in Harrisburg with Tenet officials.

Philadelphia Councilman Michael Nutter, who has been highly critical of the closure, said the city could use considerable leverage on Tenet if it chose. The city annually forgives about $4.8 million in real estate taxes from Tenet, which received the breaks when it bought eight bankrupt hospitals, including MCP, in late 1998.

Mayor Street's spokeswoman, Barbara Grant, said the mayor had been quietly taking stock of the situation. "We're still very much trying to figure out what the facts are," she said.

Philip Goldsmith, the city's managing director, said the law department was auditing Tenet, trying to determine the effect of the hospital's loss on health services in the East Falls area.

"We're not out here beating our chests and demonstrating," Goldsmith said, "because our job is to do a really good assessment."

Operated for 153 years

Tenet announced Dec. 18 that it intended to close MCP in March and to lay off about 1,000 workers. The move would close a facility that has operated for 153 years and that served as the hospital site for the nation's first all-female medical school.

The closure was announced on the same day that nurses voted overwhelmingly to end a monthlong walkout. Tenet executives said the strike had not caused the closure. MCP is expected to lose $30 million this fiscal year and is projected to lose an additional $25 million in 2004.

So far, some of the biggest effects of the announcement have been on the Drexel University College of Medicine, which trains medical students and residents at MCP.

While some Drexel doctors are fighting to save MCP, the medical school is not. "We've accepted [the closing] as a business decision at this point," spokeswoman Linda Roth said. "We're also watching the situation. If it changes, then we have to go with that."

About 250 students rotate through MCP in a year, and more than 75 students at MCP have had to be shifted to other hospitals since the announcement, Roth said. Drexel sets up training for students at 18 sites, from Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia to Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh.