The board of the District of Columbia’s troubled public hospital voted Friday to hire a national business consulting firm to help rescue the facility from organizational and financial turmoil, setting the stage for new leadership at a hospital plagued by allegations of mismanagement and questions about patient safety, the Washington Post reported. Mazars USA, an accounting and financial consulting firm that is headquartered in New York and has offices in nine states, is the board’s unanimous choice to run United Medical Center in Southeast Washington. If approved by the D.C. council, Mazars would take the reins from Veritas of Washington, whose contract the council terminated in November. D.C. Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey S. DeWitt said that the hospital, in light of its grim financial state, could require further subsidies before finalizing a deal with Mazars. Although Veritas was billed as a financial turnaround firm that could stabilize UMC when it was hired two years ago, DeWitt told the board Friday that the hospital is practically — if not legally — bankrupt.
