Brigham Doctors May Make Millions

Two staff members at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital--the Medical School's teaching hospital in Roxbury--are on their way to making millions of dollars from a profit-making artificial kidney unit, if their plans succeed.

Dr. Edward B. Hager, clinical instructor in Medicine, and Dr. Constantine L. Hampers, instructor in Medicine are the president and executive vice president, respectively, of National Medical Care, Inc. (NMC), a company designed to make a profit from the treatment of patients with fatal kidney diseases.

Hager and Hampers revealed at a conference of investment brokers last week that they intend to sell some 70,000 shares of stock in NMC, at an estimated $15 per share, when the stock officially goes public next week. They will retain for themselves a total of 531,735 shares. At the quoted price per share, they would immediately gain $1,050,0000 from stock sales while holding on to the majority of shares valued at $6 million.

Investment analysts believe the two doctors' original investment to have been in the range of $25,00 to $50,0000.

The NMC owns and operates independent profit making clinics that provide for the treatment of patients who would die without the use kidney machines to artificially clean their blood.

The first of these clinics, the Babcock Artificial Kindney Center in Brookline, was the focal point of a Public Health Council controversy earlier this year relating to the Center's connection with the Brigham Hospital.

According to Massachusetts law, only a non-profit making hospital can supervise operation of kindney machines. The Brigham was in fact temporarlly licensed to supervise the Babcock Center, but the Public Health Council felt that the agreement between the Hospital and the Center did not clearly place the responsibility of the operation on the Brigham, as is required. As a consequence, the Health Council postponed granting Babcock a permanent operating license.

The controversy was settled last month when the Brigham agreed to take full responsibility for the artificial kidney unit.