A note on the door said the locks for the spaces rented by 1917 Ashland Ventures LLC, the hospital’s owners, have been changed and that they will not receive keys until $ 461,302.24 in rent and fees have been paid.
Employees said they were not given a warning or opportunity to warn their patients or retrieve their personal items from within.
“I tried to contact the owners,” said Dr. Felicity Mack, who is listed as a doctor at the hospital. “They’re not responding. The title company isn’t responding. We’re really not getting any answers, but in the end, as I said, my main concern is my patients.”
Mack tried in the parking lot on Monday to treat patients who needed help with wound care, but couldn’t get other equipment from inside to treat others, such as Linda Fisher.
She said she comes several times a week for care from Mack for the serious ongoing effects of COVID-19.
“It’s harmful to patients and to myself,” Fisher said from her wheelchair. “It affects my functionality. I get regular visitors, so I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Mack said security would not allow them to enter the building, and police were also seen on site to inform staff that they were not allowed in.
Dr. John Thomas, another doctor who wondered what was going on, said this sends a message to their patients that their lives don’t matter.
“It is abundantly clear that a person is only thinking about money and not about community and lives,” said Thomas.
According to the staff, there are three providers operating from the 1917 Ashland St. building in the Heights. Patients and employees of the other groups were allowed access.
Meanwhile, ownership records indicate that the building is owned by 1917 Heights Hospital LLC.
The attorneys named on the letter at the hospital door did not answer ABC13’s request for comment on Monday.
Eyewitness News found that in July 2020, a civil suit had been filed in Harris County against 1917 Heights Hospital LLC by Integranet Physician Resource Inc., claiming they had not paid $ 300,000 owed to them.
Congressman Sheila Jackson Lee came to the hospital Monday afternoon and knocked on the door, but was also denied entry.
She called the situation “scandalous.”
“If they impersonate a hospital or a medical facility, there is federal involvement, and I don’t think they will be counted on getting any compensation due to them from the federal government that has closed the doors to patients,” said the congressman.
Besides not knowing how to proceed with patient care, Heights Hospital staff are unsure whether they will be paid.
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