The future of a small hospital in north St. Louis is unclear more than a month after it shut down due to a blood shortage.
Homer G. Phillips Memorial Hospital on North Jefferson Avenue opened in January 2024. It shut down and furloughed workers in December after an inspection by state health officials discovered the hospital did not have enough blood available, according to a report from the state health department.
Homer G. Phillips administrators at the time said the closure was temporary, but hospital officials have not responded to multiple requests to clarify the facility’s future. In the meantime, at least two lawsuits claim the hospital owes employees back pay.
Nebraska-based medical staffing company OneStaff filed the first in St. Louis Circuit Court on Dec. 20. It alleges the hospital owes the company more than $60,000 in unpaid services that is past due.
“OneStaff has attempted to collect the amounts that [are] due and owing amicably, but HGP has refused, and continues to refuse, to pay,” the suit claims. “OneStaff has made written demands to HGP for payment, but HGP has ignored or refused to honor such demands.”
A lawyer for OneStaff said he did not have an update on the case.
A Homer G. Phillips employee filed a second suit in small claims court alleging the hospital owes her $5,000 for unpaid wages, unemployment, paid time off and pain and suffering.
That suit says the plaintiff, Erica Spradley of St. Louis, has not been able to file for unemployment due to “the organization not reporting [her] wages and not paying unemployment insurance.”
“My bills are due, I’m having to get loans from people,” Spradley, who worked in the hospital’s lab, said when reached by phone late last week. “It’s inconsiderate. I'm very upset along with a lot of others … we just want our money.”
In a memo signed by the hospital’s board of directors on Dec. 17, the board wrote that during the temporary closure, it was collaborating with lenders “to secure additional funding aimed at expanding operations and meeting financial obligations."
Chief Executive Officer Karen Johnson and Chief Information Officer Richard Truex still list their employment at Homer G. Phillips on their LinkedIn accounts. They and other hospital officials did not respond to attempts to reach them.
In an email sent Tuesday by hospital administrators to furloughed employees, hospital officials said they would soon pay the workers but at minimum wage. An employee who did not want to be identified shared the email with St. Louis Public Radio.
“In consultation with the U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, we were advised to process payments at the minimum hourly wage of $12.30, with the remaining balance to be paid as soon as additional funds become available,” the email said.
The email said the hospital is working with board Chairman Jim Riley to secure funds to pay the balance of employees’ wages.
The hospital on the former site of the Pruitt-Igoe housing facility is in the shadow of the future National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency site.
The three inpatient-bed hospital is affiliated with area developer Paul McKee, who owns much of the land around the NGA site.
McKee did not respond to requests for an interview.
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services conducted an unannounced site visit between Dec. 9 and Dec. 12, DHSS officials said. The inspection found that in addition to having an insufficient blood supply, the hospital was not able to provide the financial information the investigators requested.
“The hospital failed to provide an approved annual operating budget for 2024,” the inspection report said. “This failure could prevent the hospital from identifying sources of financing and anticipated expenditures, and result in inadequate hospital finances.”
DHSS spokeswoman Sami Jo Freeman late last week said that the state health department extended the hospital’s temporary license suspension until March 14 but had not heard any updates from its operators.
Under current regulations, she said, the hospital must notify the state two weeks prior — by March 3 at the latest — if it wants to begin seeing patients. That gives enough time for state regulators to visit and determine if the hospital has addressed its deficiencies.
If nothing happens by then, the state will revoke Homer G. Phillips' license, and the hospital will need to apply for a new one before it can start seeing patients again.
“Whether it's a new application for reinstatement of the current license, they’ll need to complete an inspection by DHSS,” Freeman said.
The hospital was supposed to send a plan to correct the deficiencies outlined in the state’s report to the health department by the end of December, she said. As of last week, the hospital still had not sent a plan back to DHSS.
St Louis Public Radio's Rachel Lippmann contributed to this report.
