Communist Web Friday 14th April 2000 9.30pm gmt Historic battle saves Cleveland hospital By Rick Nagin CLEVELAND, Ohio - The growing fight for accessible and affordable health care scored a major victory last week when Federal Judge Mary Walrath, in an astonishing series of rulings, ordered Primary Health Systems to keep two Cleveland neighborhood hospitals open and fully functional pending a public auction set for May 1. The March 29 and 31 rulings in a bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Del. were the culmination of a month of nonstop rallies, marches, demonstrations, vigils, hearings and court battles led by Congressman Dennis Kucinich with the support of the Cleveland City Council. "This is a great victory," Kucinich said. "We get a month now to work and save the hospitals. I'm so proud of my constituents." "I've been here for 40 years," said Dr. Javier Lopez, director of surgery at St. Michael, and I've never seen anything like this in health care - not anywhere in the country. This is a historical case." "We won, man. It's great," shouted Dr. Mark A. Foglietti, chief of staff at Mt. Sinai-East. "It goes to show you what the people in the community want means something, and it means more than the bottom line in a ledger." Walrath's Wilmington, Del., courtroom was packed March 29 by batteries of attorneys and spectators including Kucinich, three Cleveland City Councilmen, representatives of the Service Employees International Union and a busload of hospital employees and Cleveland residents. Her order threw out a private deal PHS had struck with the giant Cleveland Clinic which would have closed St. Michael and Mt. Sinai-East Hospitals and also given the clinic a valuable medical office complex in exchange for $62.7 million. With sharp comments that set off a wave of whispers and gasps among spectators, the judge dismissed from the record six hours of testimony by PHS CEO Dennis Simon charging that he had made blatant misrepresentations to the court. She sternly warned the clinic, which already controls 62 percent of the hospital beds in Cuyahoga County, that unless its offer was reissued in the open bidding process, the matter might be turned over to the Justice Department for investigation of anti-trust violations. Walrath said her order for a fair and open auction was necessary to "remove the smell from the case" and that the hospitals had to remain open since they would be more valuable that way to potential bidders. Over the objections of attorneys for the clinic and PHS, Walrath allowed Kucinich to address the court and deliver a brief but impassioned speech that brought tears to... http://www.billkath.demon.co.uk/cw/historicbattle/historicbattle.html
