County Delays Decision on Trauma Center

The county Board of Supervisors has delayed until April its decision on whether to name Santa Monica Hospital a trauma center, despite an emotional appeal Tuesday from a teen-age accident victim whose life was saved by the hospital’s emergency room doctors.

Dr. Brian Johnston, director of Santa Monica’s emergency center, told the board the hospital has treated numerous trauma victims who might have died or suffered permanent injury had they been transported farther. UCLA Medical Center in Westwood, the only trauma center in the Santa Monica area, is about four miles from Santa Monica Hospital.

Johnston introduced Scott Tharpe, 17, of Reseda, whose neck was broken when he struck a submerged rock while diving at Santa Monica Beach last summer. Tharpe’s spine was almost severed, leaving him “one-quarter inch away from being a quadriplegic,” said his mother, Jackie.

“Had Scott been jostled on the . . . road to UCLA, his spine could have been severed, resulting in death or paralysis,” Johnston told the board.

Santa Monica’s request for designation as the county’s 22nd trauma center has been hotly contested by UCLA and Daniel Freeman Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood, another trauma center.

Officials of those facilities claim that they could lose scores of trauma patients to Santa Monica Hospital, leaving highly trained emergency room personnel idle and resulting in financial strain on their hospitals.

But Santa Monica Hospital officials, represented Tuesday by former Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Robert Philibosian, said the hospital already treats nearly 100 trauma patients a year who are injured in beach areas that are too far from either UCLA or Daniel Freeman.

Under the county system, communities are supposed to be within a 20-minute ambulance ride of a trauma center. However, a significant number of residents in Malibu, Pacific Palisades and Venice are more than 20 minutes from UCLA.

According to Philibosian, whose law firm has been retained by Santa Monica Hospital, the hospital would treat roughly the same number of victims if it received trauma center designation. He said the designation would allow the hospital to continue to support and improve its emergency room.

But Robert Gates, director of the county Department of Health Services, said the hospital could siphon off 30% to 40% of UCLA’s trauma patients if it were designated a trauma center.

“Frankly we don’t understand where the hospital is getting its numbers,” Gates said. He estimated that the facility is treating only about 25 people a year whom the county defines as trauma victims, but would treat about 100 if it were designated a trauma center.