PRESS RELEASE
Last Southeast Washington Hospital May Close; LaRouche Warned of Privatization Swindle
Oct. 21, 2007 (EIRNS)—This release was issued today by the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC).
Greater Southeast Hospital in Washington, D.C., which was supposed to replace the shut-down D.C. General, is in danger of losing its accreditation again, because of an "immediate threat to life," according to the Joint Commission on Accreditation. According to the Washington Post, the latest problems concern the hospital's fire alarm and fire-suppression systems, and emergency power supply.
The LaRouche movement warned in 2001, before D.C. General was closed under a privatization scheme, that the group in control of Greater Southeast were crooks and racketeers. Since that time, the group's financial partner went bankrupt in a multi-billion dollar fraud involving asset-backed securities, and the firm's executives have been indicted for securities fraud and money laundering. On Oct. 18, the former chief executive of National Century Financial Enterprises was arrested on additional charges of witness tampering and obstruction of justice. National Century was the financial partner of Doctors Community Healthcare Corp., the owners of Greater Southeast, and National Century was buying up Greater Southeast's financial receivables and bundling them into securities, while skimming off the proceeds and not paying the hospitals bills.
In the latest effort to bail out the failing hospital, the D.C. government has agreed to pay $79 million to allow yet another buyer to take it over; one source tells LPAC that the buyer plans to turn it into into a nursing home, eliminating the last remaining hospital in poverty-stricken southeast Washington.
