For the past four years, Sutter Health Corp. has put the future fiscal health of Marin General Hospital at risk through a series of enormous and improper “cash sweeps” from the hospital’s accounts, totaling more than $120 million.
Sutter’s cash sweeps have forced Marin General Hospital to operate without the available reserve funds routinely kept by other hospitals for normal operations, including the anticipated costs of the upkeep, repair and replacement of equipment and facilities. Sutter accomplished the removal of this more than $120 million by creating a Hospital Board with a clear conflict of interest, and an accounting department answerable only to Sutter.
Sutter’s improper and intentional actions depleted the reserves required to invest in the long-term future and continued modernization of the community’s major hospital and its only trauma center.