Patients treated in parking lot after Texas hospital’s locks changed in rent dispute

Patients underwent treatment in a Texas hospital parking lot after the locks were changed in a rent dispute, news outlets report.

Doctors and patients arrived at The Heights Hospital in Houston on Monday unable to enter the building and a note accusing the tenant of falling behind about $1 million in rent, KHOU reported.

“Please be advised that the door locks to the leased premises have been changed and tenant shall be excluded therefrom due to non-payment of rent,” the note stated, according to KHOU.

The Heights Hospital mainly provides outpatient services and building space for specialists and primary care physicians, the Houston Chronicle reported. It’s also been providing COVID-19 tests, the newspaper reported.

Liza Fisher, who is recovering from the coronavirus, told the Houston Chronicle she goes to the hospital every week for ongoing symptoms from the disease.

“If this continues I don’t know what I’ll do,” Fisher told the newspaper. “It will be a complete disruption of my care.”

With no access to the building, doctors put a cart with medical supplies in the parking lot and treated patients, according to the Houston Chronicle.

“I tried to contact the owners,” Dr. Felicity Mack, a physician at the hospital, told KTRK on Monday. “They aren’t responding. The title company is not responding. We are really not getting any answers, but at the end of the day, my primary concern, like I said, is my patients.”

A Nevada company that holds the note to a $28 million loan received by the hospital filed a lawsuit in Harris County, accusing it of failing to make payments and expenses for “utilities, elevator repair and even property insurance — and that as a result insurance has been canceled,” the Houston Chronicle reported.

Dr. John Thomas told KTRK that barring patients sends the wrong message.

“It is very obvious that somebody is thinking only about money and not about community and lives,” Thomas told the news outlet.