Via iStockPhoto

The family of a man who died at United Medical Center says they were unaware of this passing until they visited the hospital a week later, according a report from The Washington Post. Bradford Brown’s relatives also said it took hospital officials several days to locate his body and transfer it to the medical examiner’s office.

Officials from the troubled hospital in Southeast claim that they followed proper protocols during the entire process.

Meiko Brown told The Post that she and her sister went to visit their 70-year-old father at UMC’s nursing home on August 2. When they arrived, a receptionist told them that there wasn’t a patient there by his name.

When they went to his floor, a nurse who saw them asked a colleague, “Do they know he expired?” Naturally at this point, Meiko Brown told The Post that she “completely lost it.” She said “I couldn’t breathe. It was like something else took over my body.”

Although Meiko Brown said August 2 was the first time she and her family learned about her father’s death, UMC officials said in a statement to DCist that they have “reviewed the circumstances of this case and confirm that the hospital followed all proper protocols including notification to the next of kin in a timely manner.”

A nurse called a family friend, An-Nas Osiris Bey, after Mr. Brown died on July 26.

In a meeting with hospital officials on August 4, the nurse told Meiko Brown that she said “sorry for the loss” to Bey during their brief conversation. Bey told The Post that he didn’t recall the nurse saying those words and he left the conversation thinking the call was about Mr. Brown being moved to intensive care because of breathing problems.

During the meeting, Meiko Brown also spoke with UMC administrator Ola Fadairo. According to a recording of the conversation obtained by The Post, Fadairo assured her that officials “have taken steps to block this type of thing happening again.”

“You’ve been a help to us, and we continually need your support and help, because we need to portray the image of this establishment,” Fadairo said, according to The Post. “This is the only black hospital so far around here and we must do something to maintain it.”

Though Fadairo, who is also a minister, allegedly promised the family a written report on the hospital’s handling of Brown’s death, he later told the newspaper that he was “just there as a supervisor who is trying to appease them” and he had no idea what’s happening with the investigation.

Adding to the anguish, Meiko Brown said she made several calls to the hospital and the medical examiner to locate her father’s body, according to The Post. She said she received no confirmation of where it was until it finally arrived at the examiner’s office after several days. In response to the accusation that hospital officials possibly lost track of the body, UMC officials said in the statement that they “followed all protocols correctly and can attest that the body was accounted for at all times.”

Mr. Brown’s case comes as the half-century old hospital contends with financial, infrastructure, and operational problems that have plagued the facility for years. Most recently, the D.C. Department of Health restricted the hospital’s license for delivering babies and providing newborn nursery services due deficiencies in screening, clinical assessment, and delivery protocols. Now, women who planned on delivering babies at UMC, D.C.’s only hospital east of the Anacostia River, have to make new arrangements.

D.C. bought the struggling facility at auction (there were no other bidders) for $20 million in 2010. Amid plans for Howard University and a partner to take over operations, then-Mayor Vincent Gray proposed replacing the hospital in 2014, but neither plan took off.

In 2016, the hospital board voted to approve a site selection study, and the D.C. Council has since dedicated $300 million for a new hospital to be built on the St. Elizabeths campus in Congress Heights by 2023.

After learning about the intensive care unit closure, Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent Gray said that the six years is “too long for a new hospital to open.” He said that the closure should highlight “the inadequacy of health care services for East End residents” and encourage the city’s leaders to act more swiftly on the issue of health equity.

Mr. Brown’s relatives said they’re hoping for some closure now that their patriarch’s body is no longer in the custody of the hospital’s officials.