DMC case to keep Karmanos begins
Change could force layoffs, official says

July 3, 2007

BY PATRICIA ANSTETT

FREE PRESS MEDICAL WRITER

Threatening possible hospital closings and layoffs, lawyers for the Detroit Medical Center opened hearings Monday in a lawsuit to stop its longtime partner, the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, from leaving the campus they share for Detroit Riverview Hospital.

Ben Carter, the DMC's chief operating officer, in more than four hours of testimony Monday, said that the medical center, might be forced to close hospitals and lay off staff.

"We've turned the operations around but we're still fragile financially and any further losses will put us back where we were three years ago," he said.

The DMC has been gaining financial strength since it nearly went bankrupt in 2005, making nearly $34 million in 2006, Carter said. Between 1998 and 2003, the medical center lost $500 million, he said.