WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. — Crittenden Regional Hospital has no patients or staff, and as of Thursday, there was a fight to keeps the lights on.
County Quorum Court Judge Woody Wheeless scrambled to pay thousands Thursday morning before the City of West Memphis pulled the plug on electricity for non-paid utilities at the county-owned building .
“If you were to shut this facility down, according to the maintenance crew, you open up the possibility of mold and stuff growing in this building and if you do, then you take away any chance of being able to open this facility back up without a major renovation,” Wheeless said.
He made the payment, but the hospital is still millions in debt and the bankrupt board that ran it has now been slapped with a new federal lawsuit filed by hospital workers.
The workers say the board created a scheme to defraud hospital employees by misappropriating millions of dollars employees paid for healthcare. No one knows where the money went, and the workers are left uninsured.
West Memphis Mayor William Johnson is one of the board members being sued. He wouldn’t talk about the case or how the board he sat on suddenly closed the hospital, even after voters agreed to a sales tax to keep it open.
We asked him if, as mayor, he had an obligation to tell citizens the hospital was going to close.
“I refer you to the attorney that is handling this matter and you can get any information from them,” Johnson replied.
He walked away from our camera when we asked if there was a conflict of interest for him to be on the hospital board.
He may not be talking, but this could become a political firecracker.
Joyce Gray is running against the mayor and is calling for answers about what went on behind the scenes.
“The mayor is on the board and I think he could have brought it to us before time, to let the citizens know the hospital was gonna close, long before the seven days they gave us notice,” Gray said.
The state senator from West Memphis and former mayor, Keith Ingram, is also named in the new federal lawsuit. He served on the hospital board.
The question remains, “What did they all know?”
The federal lawsuit could supersede one filed in state court earlier, and carries more penalties.
