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Marin General Hospital

Breaking news.  

The nasty and long-running feud between The Marin Healthcare District and Sutter Health is allegedly going to spill into the courtroom (court location not known at this time) tomorrow, Thursday, when the attorneys for Marin General Hospital are scheduled to announce they will file a lawsuit against Sutter Health for its management of the hospital since 1995.

According to sources, James J. Brosnahan of the Morrison and Forrester law firm (and who, if I'm not mistaken, was at the same birthday party for U.S. Assistant Attorney General Tony West this blogger attended in 2009) will announce the lawsuit on behalf of the publically elected Marin Healthcare District Board of Directors.

The healthcare district is seeking more than $100 million it says Sutter wrongly took out of the coffers of Marin General. Sutter has said all along that it has followed the agreement between the District and itself which was approved by the court and allowed Sutter to retain the monies during its administration of the hospital.

Nonetheless, some Marin residents have wanted to control the hospital themselves and oust Sutter from management of Marin General. But, many - including Marin's own Grand Jury - have doubted the ability of the publically elected board of the Marin Healthcare District to be able to run the hospital and others have been quietly critical of the leadership of Marin General's new CEO Lee Domanico.

Already, this week, the Marin United Taxpayers Association wrote in a letter to the editor in the Marin Independent Journal that, under Domanico's leadership:

"Here we go again. No kidding, it is business as usual at Marin General Hospital. We now have a similar private board that isn't accountable to the public, like the previous one that allowed $200-plus million to go to Sutter, and big money to exclusive contracts with large doctor groups (oncology, cardiology, hospitalists, radiologists, pathologists, etc.).

"Now we have the same setup that is not transparent to the public, meets in private, and pays its CEO, a public employee until now, $800,000, and the doctors will still get their exclusive contracts because their representatives are on the board. MGH, another Bell, Calif.

"MGH did come back to the public, momentarily.

"On June 30, the transition date, the incumbent directors on the publicly elected board had already arranged to give it away to another private board immediately. That private board can have 49 percent of members with financial conflicts, meaning they can facilitate their own exclusive, expensive deals with the hospital, and the public won't be able to see the sweetheart deals; all paid with revenues from the public hospital.

"Worse yet, they will ask the taxpayers for a $300 million bond and another 30-year contract with this private corporation, to rebuild MGH, with no accountability to the public for what it does, and no lawsuit against the last "community" board members to get back the last, lost $200-plus millions. And just watch these rich contract doctors post office signs touting the incumbents - it's payback time."

There's an old saying: be careful who you chose as your enemy, for they may look just like you.

Stay tuned.