Daniel Fowler, The Examiner
2007-06-25 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

Prince George’s County -

Although Prince George’s County is threatening to stop giving money to the company that runs its hospital system until four members of its board of directors resign, a union leader said they shouldn’t step down.

“The county has done nothing to prove to the [community] or the union that they should have more control over this hospital,” said Quincey Gamble, political director of the union that represents 1,800 hospital system workers.

Last week, the county demanded that four of 11 board members resign: board Chairman Calvin Brown, George Bone, William Williams and Donald Foran, according to Dimensions spokeswoman Suzanne Almalel. Dimensions, which is more than $100 million in debt, runs the county-owned system.

“I look at this as the latest in a long line of actions that make this hospital unstable and untenable,” Gamble said. “And, ultimately, I don’t see how this will make a better hospital available to the citizens of the county.”

John Erzen, a spokesman for County Executive Jack Johnson, said the county wants the resignations by today and a reconstitution of the board to take place by July 1.

“We need more opportunity to affect change and to have more of say in the direction of the hospital system,” he said this week.

Almalel said the board is holding a special meeting on the situation today.

“The county needs to have a plan,” Gamble said. “If there is some way that folks resigning will make it a better hospital, then they need to put it out in a plan and let the community buy into it.” But, Gamble said, “They don’t have a plan.”

When the county provided Dimensions with $5 million in February for the system, the board agreed to reconstitute itself, among other things, if it required any subsequent county appropriations.

In April, when the system faced bankruptcy or closure, the county pledged to fund it through June 2008, and already has provided Dimensions with $7 million. The county budgeted an additional $12 million for fiscal year 2008 and it is withholding another $2 million pending the resignations, Erzen said.

dfowler@dcexaminer.com