Baltimore hospital filed 2,400 lawsuits often against poor and black patients for unpaid medical bills between 2009 and 2018

Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, filed over 2,000 lawsuits often against poor and African American patients, and including many of their own neighbors, for unpaid medical bills, a new study has revealed.

The hospital, one of the state’s largest, filed 2,400 lawsuits between 2009 and 2018 that totaled $4.8m in alleged debt from patients, according to a report from American unions AFL-CIO and National Nurses United and community advocacy group Coalition for a Humane Hopkins. The median unpaid debt that led to a lawsuit was $1,438.